Sensory Gating Ability in Combat Veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom With and Without PTSD

Selecting, processing, and interpreting stimuli is necessary for a healthy and autonomous person. A component of this process is sensory gating, or the ability to filter extraneous information in the environment and select what is important for subsequent processing. A common symptom of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is sensory flooding, which is an overwhelming feeling of too many stimuli at once. Literature suggests that sensory gating deficiencies may underlie problems with sensory flooding in PTSD patients. Two groups of combat veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF), those diagnosed with PTSD and those not diagnosed with PTSD, underwent sensory gating testing using the paired-click paradigm while neuronal responses were recorded with magnetoencephalogram (MEG) technology. Results showed that the PTSD and control groups both had deficient sensory gating, demonstrated by high S2/S1 ratios, counter to previous studies' findings. A significant laterality effect was found for the PTSD group for response amplitude to S1 and S2, with the left hemisphere showing larger responses in both cases. These findings suggest that either the controls are more similar to PTSD patients than what was expected, or that this study failed to capture true differences between the two groups. There also may be laterality differences in cognitive processing found in PTSD patients.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Comitz, Elizabeth

• Evoked potential

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/39327

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/39327