Neural connectome prospectively encodes the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected humans worldwide and led to unprecedented stress and mortality. Detrimental effects of the pandemic on mental health, including risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have become an increasing concern. The identification of prospective neurobiological vulnerability markers for developing PTSD symptom during the pandemic is thus of high importance. Methods Before the COVID-19 outbreak (September 20, 2019–January 11, 2020), some healthy participants underwent resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) acquisition. We assessed the PTSD symptomology of these individuals during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic (February 21, 2020–February 28, 2020) in China. This pseudo-prospective cohort design allowed us to test whether the pre-pandemic neural connectome status could predict the risk of developing PTSD symptom during the pandemic. Results A total of 5.60% of participants (n = 42) were identified as being high-risk to develop PTSD symptom and 12.00% (n = 90) exhibited critical levels of PTSD symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic measures of functional connectivity (the neural connectome) prospectively classified those with heightened risk to develop PTSD symptom from matched controls (Accuracy = 76.19%, Sensitivity = 80.95%, Specificity = 71.43%). The trained classifier generalized to an independent sample. Continuous prediction models revealed that the same connectome could accurately predict the severity of PTSD symptoms within individuals ( r 2 = 0.31p<.0). Conclusions This study confirms COVID-19 break as a crucial stressor to bring risks developing PTSD symptom and demonstrates that brain functional markers can prospectively identify individuals at risk to develop PTSD symptom.

Effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on functional and structural connectivity in post-COVID-19 condition patients: A randomized, sham-controlled trial

“…As shown in our previous publication, HBOT improved both depression and somatization symptoms in post-COVID-19 condition patients ( Zilberman-Itskovich et al, 2022 ). An association between COVID-19 related psychiatric symptoms and alternations in rsFC has been demonstrated in several studies ( Chen et al, 2021 , Fu et al, 2021 , Liu et al, 2021 , Sheynin et al, 2020 ). In the current study, we observed increased connectivity between the amygdala and left angular gyrus and the primary sensory-motor area, which are associated with the execution of cognitive emotion regulation initiated by frontal areas ( Kohn et al, 2014 , Kropf et al, 2018 ).…”

Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorders and associated factors one month after the outbreak of the COVID-19 among the public in southwestern China: a cross-sectional study

“…Comparing the PTSD prevalence rate before and after the pandemic, the obvious increase of this rate after the pandemic indicates a positive correlation between the pandemic and PTSD, and it is reasonable to assume that COVID-19 pandemic can be highly traumatic experiences. A recently study based on resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) also showed that COVID-19 pandemic was a crucial stressor to bring risks developing PTSD symptom [ 25 ]. The underlined result was consistent with the results of several recently published systematic review and meta-analyses.…”

Higher socioeconomic status strengthens confidence facing the COVID-19 pandemic for the males rather than females: the predictive role of left hippocampus

“…Data for current study came from the project aligning with prior researches called the Behavior-Brain Research Project for Chinese personality traits (BBP) (Chen et al, 2021;Feng et al, 2021;He et al, 2021). Inclusion criteria for all participants were: history of chronic psychiatric (i.e., depression), current or history of medical (i.e., hypertension) or infectious diseases, taking prescription during the past 3 months, alcohol drinking or smoking per day, having an operation in the past one year, and in pregnancy (Table 1).…”