Narrative exposure therapy for PTSD increases top-down processing of aversive stimuli - evidence from a randomized controlled treatment trial

BMC Neuroscience

Research Article

Frank Neuner¹  Claudia Catani¹  Martina Ruf²  Julian Keil²  Hannah Adenauer²  Maggie Schauer²  Hannah Gola³ 

[1] Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany;Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, 78457, Konstanz, Germany;Department of Psychology, University of Ulm, 89081, Ulm, Germany;

关键词: Ptsd Symptom;    Neutral Picture;    International Affective Picture System;    Ptsd Patient;    Narrative Exposure Therapy;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-12-127

 received in 2011-10-19, accepted in 2011-12-19,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundLittle is known about the neurobiological foundations of psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Prior studies have shown that PTSD is associated with altered processing of threatening and aversive stimuli. It remains unclear whether this functional abnormality can be changed by psychotherapy. This is the first randomized controlled treatment trial that examines whether narrative exposure therapy (NET) causes changes in affective stimulus processing in patients with chronic PTSD.Methods34 refugees with PTSD were randomly assigned to a NET group or to a waitlist control (WLC) group. At pre-test and at four-months follow-up, the diagnostics included the assessment of clinical variables and measurements of neuromagnetic oscillatory brain activity (steady-state visual evoked fields, ssVEF) resulting from exposure to aversive pictures compared to neutral pictures.ResultsPTSD as well as depressive symptom severity scores declined in the NET group, whereas symptoms persisted in the WLC group. Only in the NET group, parietal and occipital activity towards threatening pictures increased significantly after therapy.ConclusionsOur results indicate that NET causes an increase of activity associated with cortical top-down regulation of attention towards aversive pictures. The increase of attention allocation to potential threat cues might allow treated patients to re-appraise the actual danger of the current situation and, thereby, reducing PTSD symptoms.Registration of the clinical trialNumber: NCT00563888Name: "Change of Neural Network Indicators Through Narrative Treatment of PTSD in Torture Victims" ULR: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00563888

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Adenauer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011