PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Zhu, Yunqi
AU  - Du, Ruili
AU  - Zhu, Yuankai
AU  - Shen, Yehua
AU  - Zhang, Kai
AU  - Chen, Yao
AU  - Song, Fahuan
AU  - Wu, Shuang
AU  - Zhang, Hong
AU  - Tian, Mei
TI  - PET Mapping of Neurofunctional Changes in a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Model
AID  - 10.2967/jnumed.116.173443
DP  - 2016 Sep 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine
PG  - 1474--1477
VI  - 57
IP  - 9
4099  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/57/9/1474.short
4100  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/57/9/1474.full
SO  - J Nucl Med2016 Sep 01; 57
AB  - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that occurs after exposure to a traumatic event. This study aimed to investigate the neurobiologic changes before and after exposure-based therapy by PET in a rat model of PTSD. Methods: Serial 18F-FDG PET imaging studies were performed under the control (tone presentation), fear-conditioning, and extinction retrieval phases. Neuroactivity marker c-Fos protein was used for immunostaining. Results: Increased glucose metabolism was observed in the bilateral amygdala after fear-conditioning (P < 0.001) and in the right posterior insular cortex under extinction retrieval (P < 0.001) compared with the control phase. Increased c-Fos expression in the posterior insular cortex under extinction retrieval was positively correlated to the glucose metabolism (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Our results indicated that the amygdala plays a key role in fear memory formation and, most importantly, the insular cortex is related to the retrieval of extinction memory. 18F-FDG PET may provide a promising in vivo approach for evaluating exposure-based therapy of PTSD.