Brain functional network changes associated with psychological symptoms in emergency psychological responding professionals after the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic

Ying Hu; Hao Hu; Yawen Sun; Yiming Zhang; Yao Wang; Xu Han; Shanshan Su; Kaiming Zhuo; Zhen Wang; Yan Zhou

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1014866

Brain functional network changes associated with psychological symptoms in emergency psychological responding professionals after the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic

Front Psychiatry. 2023 Apr 28:14:1014866. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1014866. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ying Hu¹, Hao Hu^{2

3}, Yawen Sun¹, Yiming Zhang¹, Yao Wang¹, Xu Han¹, Shanshan Su^{2

3}, Kaiming Zhuo^{2

3}, Zhen Wang^{2

3

4}, Yan Zhou¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
² Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
³ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Institute of Psychological and Behavioral Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Background: Emergency psychological responding professionals are recruited to help deal with psychological issues as the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues. We aimed to study the neural correlates of psychological states in these emergency psychological responding professionals after exposure to COVID-19 related trauma at baseline and after 1-year self-adjustment.

Methods: Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and multiscale network approaches were utilized to evaluate the functional brain activities in emergency psychological professionals after trauma. Temporal (baseline vs. follow-up) and cross-sectional (emergency psychological professionals vs. healthy controls) differences were studied using appropriate t-tests. The brain functional network correlates of psychological symptoms were explored.

Results: At either time-point, significant changes in the ventral attention (VEN) and the default mode network (DMN) were associated with psychological symptoms in emergency psychological professionals. In addition, the emergency psychological professionals whose mental states improved after 1 year demonstrated altered intermodular connectivity strength between several modules in the functional network, mainly linking the DMN, VEN, limbic, and frontoparietal control modules.

Conclusion: Brain functional network alterations and their longitudinal changes varied across groups of EPRT with distinctive clinical features. Exposure to emergent trauma does cause psychological professionals to produce DMN and VEN network changes related to psychological symptoms. About 65% of them will gradually adjust mental states, and the network tends to be rebalanced after a year.

Keywords: COVID-19; emergency psychological responding professionals; multiscale functional network; neuroimaging; psychological symptoms.