EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS TO STIMULI WITH EMOTIONAL IMPACT IN POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS PATIENTS

Background: Psychophysiological research has given conflicting results with respect to whether the abnormal physiologic responses observed i n posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reflect a general abnormality o r are linked to trauma-related stimuli. We studied differences in the central nervous processing of words with emotional impact in survivors after a ship fire disaster Methods: Event-related potentials were stu died in II survivors with posttraumatic stress pathology, and compared with 9 survivors without such pathology. Nonwords and words with nega tive or positive emotional valence were used as distracters in a P3 od dball paradigm. Results: PTSD subjects had increased N1 latency to sta ndard tones and increased positive amplitude to both words and nonword s compared with controls, occurring between 200 and 350 msec after sti mulus onset. The amplitudes to emotionally meaningful words were signi ficantly related to Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale-assessed PTSD di mensions, in particular avoidance and arousal. Conclusions: The abnorm ality in information processing observed in PTSD patients seems in par t to be linked with increased attention, in part with emotional respon ses to the trauma. Intrusion was mainly related to the processing of n onwords, while arousal and avoidance were related to event-related pot ential amplitudes to emotionally meaningful words, suggesting that int rusion has a different neurobiological basis than arousal and avoidanc e. (C) 1998 Society of Biological Psychiatry.