Life-threatening events cause extreme fear, which evolves in vulnerable people into a debilitating mental illness--post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here we directly address how acute fear evolves to anxiety using high field MR in mouse models of PTSD, applying systems-wide longitudinal manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI) to image whole brain responses to unconditioned fear, predator stress (PS), and progression or resolution over time. We report that serotonin transporter knock-out results in sustained anxiety-like behavior and altered neural activity after predator stress. Automated segmentation of SPM maps identifies m regions correlated with progression to PTSD for the first time.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.