Distinct pre-COVID brain structural signatures in COVID-19-related post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth

Abstract

Post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth are common co-occurring psychological responses following exposure to traumatic events (such as COVID-19 pandemic), their mutual relationship remains unclear. To explore this relationship, structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 115 general college students before the COVID-19 pandemic, and follow-up post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth measurements were collected during the pandemic. Voxel-based morphometry was conducted and individual structural covariance networks based on gray matter volume were further analyzed using graph theory and partial least squares correlation. Behavioral correlation found no significant relationship between post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth. Voxel-based morphometry analyses showed that post-traumatic stress symptoms were positively correlated with gray matter volume in medial prefrontal cortex/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and post-traumatic growth was negatively correlated with gray matter volume in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Structural covariance network analyses found that post-traumatic stress symptoms were negatively correlated with the local efficiency and clustering coefficient of the network. Moreover, partial least squares correlation showed that post-traumatic stress symptoms were correlated with pronounced nodal properties patterns in default mode, sensory and motor regions, and a marginal correlation of post-traumatic growth with a nodal property pattern in emotion regulation-related regions. This study advances our understanding of the neurobiological substrates of post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth, and suggests that they may have different neuroanatomical features.

Keywords: COVID-19; post-traumatic growth; post-traumatic stress symptoms; psychoradiology; structural covariance network.