Original articleAltered Central μ-Opioid Receptor Binding After Psychological Trauma
Section snippets
Participants
Forty-five male participants were recruited by using advertisements within the Veterans Affairs Hospital and clinics, local newspapers, and veterans’ organizations. Sixteen Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD patients; PP), 15 Vietnam veterans with prior combat exposure without PTSD (combat controls; CC), and 14 age-matched subjects without prior trauma exposure (normal controls; NC) participated in this study. PTSD and other axis I diagnoses were established according to
General
Overall, significant differences in μ-opioid receptor BP2 were detected by the ANOVA among the three groups in many of the a priori hypothesized regions: amygdala, extended amygdala, thalamus, NAc, insula, ACC, and mPFC (Table 2; Figure 1, Figure 2). Direct group comparisons identified differential, region-specific μ-opioid receptor availability (Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Figure 1, Figure 2). Specifically, relative to healthy controls, both trauma-exposed groups had lower μ-opioid receptor BP2
Discussion
Altered function of endogenous opioids system in PTSD patients has been hypothesized elsewhere (Glover 1993, Pitman et al 1990); however, this is the first direct evidence of alterations in μ-opioid receptor in vivo availability in PTSD. We observed significant differences in regional μ-opioid receptor BP2 between the trauma-exposed groups and normal controls, as well as between PTSD patients and trauma-exposed individuals who did not develop PTSD. μ-Opioid receptor BP2 was measured in our
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