Scene construction impairment in posttraumatic stress disorder restored following Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy
Bergman, Emma ; Perrin, Sean LU
and Johansson, Mikael
LU
(2023)
EMDR Research and Practice Conference 2023
- Abstract
- The ability to encode, imagine, and remember coherent representations of the world is crucial for everyday life and depends on a brain network involving the hippocampal region. Scene construction tasks, which measure spatial coherence, have been shown to be sensitive to hippocampal integrity in amnesic patients. Hippocampal dysfunction has been implicated in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition characterized by intrusions of the trauma memory, often in a highly sensory, fragmented, and non-coherent state. The present study assesses spatial coherence (beyond the trauma memory) in ¬¬¬¬adults receiving Eye Movement and Desensitization (EMDR) therapy for PTSD and healthy controls and whether reductions in PTSD were associated with... (More)
- The ability to encode, imagine, and remember coherent representations of the world is crucial for everyday life and depends on a brain network involving the hippocampal region. Scene construction tasks, which measure spatial coherence, have been shown to be sensitive to hippocampal integrity in amnesic patients. Hippocampal dysfunction has been implicated in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition characterized by intrusions of the trauma memory, often in a highly sensory, fragmented, and non-coherent state. The present study assesses spatial coherence (beyond the trauma memory) in ¬¬¬¬adults receiving Eye Movement and Desensitization (EMDR) therapy for PTSD and healthy controls and whether reductions in PTSD were associated with improvements in spatial coherence. Adults (N=17) with PTSD receiving EMDR completed clinical measures and a scene construction task before and after treatment. Age-matched, healthy controls (N=17) completed the scene construction task over the same interval. PTSD scores improved significantly from pre- to posttreatment; completers no longer meeting criteria for PTSD diagnosis. Patients displayed significant impairments in generating spatially coherent scenes compared to controls at pre-treatment but were similar to controls at post-treatment. This is the first study demonstrating that adults with PTSD have difficulty generating spatially coherent scenes, indicating a general disruption of spatial coherence beyond trauma memories. The present study further suggests that EMDR therapy may restore the hippocampally-dependent capacity for spatial coherence in PTSD. Further studies are warranted involving larger samples, additional tests of hippocampal functioning, and how performances on these tasks are related to symptom severity and change. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5cdd9b94-b293-436b-8e16-45dddb8212ca
- author
- Bergman, Emma
; Perrin, Sean
LU
and Johansson, Mikael
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-06-24
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- PTSD, EMDR, Scene construction, Episodic memory, spatial coherence
- conference name
- EMDR Research and Practice Conference 2023
- conference location
- Bologna, Italy
- conference dates
- 2023-06-23 - 2023-06-25
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 5cdd9b94-b293-436b-8e16-45dddb8212ca
- date added to LUP
- 2024-03-15 11:59:40
- date last changed
- 2024-03-15 15:02:13
@misc{5cdd9b94-b293-436b-8e16-45dddb8212ca,
abstract = {{The ability to encode, imagine, and remember coherent representations of the world is crucial for everyday life and depends on a brain network involving the hippocampal region. Scene construction tasks, which measure spatial coherence, have been shown to be sensitive to hippocampal integrity in amnesic patients. Hippocampal dysfunction has been implicated in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition characterized by intrusions of the trauma memory, often in a highly sensory, fragmented, and non-coherent state. The present study assesses spatial coherence (beyond the trauma memory) in ¬¬¬¬adults receiving Eye Movement and Desensitization (EMDR) therapy for PTSD and healthy controls and whether reductions in PTSD were associated with improvements in spatial coherence. Adults (N=17) with PTSD receiving EMDR completed clinical measures and a scene construction task before and after treatment. Age-matched, healthy controls (N=17) completed the scene construction task over the same interval. PTSD scores improved significantly from pre- to posttreatment; completers no longer meeting criteria for PTSD diagnosis. Patients displayed significant impairments in generating spatially coherent scenes compared to controls at pre-treatment but were similar to controls at post-treatment. This is the first study demonstrating that adults with PTSD have difficulty generating spatially coherent scenes, indicating a general disruption of spatial coherence beyond trauma memories. The present study further suggests that EMDR therapy may restore the hippocampally-dependent capacity for spatial coherence in PTSD. Further studies are warranted involving larger samples, additional tests of hippocampal functioning, and how performances on these tasks are related to symptom severity and change.}},
author = {{Bergman, Emma and Perrin, Sean and Johansson, Mikael}},
keywords = {{PTSD; EMDR; Scene construction; Episodic memory; spatial coherence}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
title = {{Scene construction impairment in posttraumatic stress disorder restored following Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy}},
year = {{2023}},
}