TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural valuation of rewards and punishments in posttraumatic stress disorder
T2 - a computational approach
AU - Jia, Ruonan
AU - Ruderman, Lital
AU - Pietrzak, Robert H.
AU - Gordon, Charles
AU - Ehrlich, Daniel
AU - Horvath, Mark
AU - Mirchandani, Serena
AU - DeFontes, Clara
AU - Southwick, Steven
AU - Krystal, John H.
AU - Harpaz-Rotem, Ilan
AU - Levy, Ifat
N1 - Funding Information:
This research project was supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, NIMH Grant R21MH102634 to IL and IHR and NIMH grant R01MH118215 to IL. We also thank graduate student training grants from the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale and the China Scholarship Council. We thank Alicia Roy and Dr. Erin O’Brien for the recruitment and clinical assessment of veterans; Dr. Michael A. Grubb for development of the version of the task paradigm used here; Simon Podhajsky, Yumiko Nakamura, and Pooja Salhotra for help with data collection and data pre-processing. We also thank Dr. Jutta Joormann and Dr. Hyojung Seo for suggestions and comments on data analyses.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with changes in fear learning and decision-making, suggesting involvement of the brain’s valuation system. Here we investigate the neural mechanisms of subjective valuation of rewards and punishments in combat veterans. In a functional MRI study, male combat veterans with a wide range of posttrauma symptoms (N = 48, Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, CAPS-IV) made a series of choices between sure and uncertain monetary gains and losses. Activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during valuation of uncertain options was associated with PTSD symptoms, an effect which was consistent for gains and losses, and specifically driven by numbing symptoms. In an exploratory analysis, computational modeling of choice behavior was used to estimate the subjective value of each option. The neural encoding of subjective value varied as a function of symptoms. Most notably, veterans with PTSD exhibited enhanced representations of the saliency of gains and losses in the neural valuation system, especially in ventral striatum. These results suggest a link between the valuation system and the development and maintenance of PTSD, and demonstrate the significance of studying reward and punishment processing within subject.
AB - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with changes in fear learning and decision-making, suggesting involvement of the brain’s valuation system. Here we investigate the neural mechanisms of subjective valuation of rewards and punishments in combat veterans. In a functional MRI study, male combat veterans with a wide range of posttrauma symptoms (N = 48, Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, CAPS-IV) made a series of choices between sure and uncertain monetary gains and losses. Activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during valuation of uncertain options was associated with PTSD symptoms, an effect which was consistent for gains and losses, and specifically driven by numbing symptoms. In an exploratory analysis, computational modeling of choice behavior was used to estimate the subjective value of each option. The neural encoding of subjective value varied as a function of symptoms. Most notably, veterans with PTSD exhibited enhanced representations of the saliency of gains and losses in the neural valuation system, especially in ventral striatum. These results suggest a link between the valuation system and the development and maintenance of PTSD, and demonstrate the significance of studying reward and punishment processing within subject.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151107320&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41398-023-02388-4
DO - 10.1038/s41398-023-02388-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 36977676
AN - SCOPUS:85151107320
SN - 2158-3188
VL - 13
JO - Translational Psychiatry
JF - Translational Psychiatry
IS - 1
M1 - 101
ER -