Sex Differences in Re-experiencing Symptoms Between Husbands and Wives Who Lost Their Only Child in China: A Resting-State Functional Connectivity Study of Hippocampal Subfields

• Main Authors: Yifeng Luo, Yu Liu, Zhao Qing, Li Zhang, Yifei Weng, Xiaojie Zhang, Hairong Shan, Lingjiang Li, Rongfeng Qi, Zhihong Cao, Guangming Lu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-01
• Series: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
• Subjects: lost only child; sex differences; couple; functional connectivity; hippocampal subfields; re-experiencing symptom
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.655044/full

Background: Losing one’s only child may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which re-experiencing is the core symptom. However, neuroimaging studies of sex differences in re-experiencing in the context of the trauma of losing one’s only child and PTSD are scarce; comparisons of the functional networks from the hippocampal subfields to the thalamus might clarify the neural basis.Methods: Thirty couples without any psychiatric disorder who lost their only child (non-PTSD group), 55 patients with PTSD, and 50 normal controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The functional connectivity (FC) from the hippocampal subregions to the thalamus and the correlations of FC with re-experiencing symptoms were analyzed within and between the sexes.Results: Compared with husbands without PTSD, wives without PTSD had higher re-experiencing symptoms and weaker FC between the right hippocampal cornu ammonis 3 (RCA3) and the right thalamus (RT; RCA3-RT). Moreover, only the correlation between the RCA3-RT FC and re-experiencing in wives without PTSD was significant. Among the three groups, only the RCA3-RT FC in female subjects was markedly different. Additionally, the RCA3-RT FC in wives without PTSD was remarkably lower relative to female patients with PTSD.Conclusion: Wives without PTSD who lost their only child had worse re-experiencing symptoms relative to their husbands, which was associated with the FC alteration between the hippocampal subregions and the thalamus. Importantly, the low level of the RCA3-RT FC may play a potentially protective role against the development of PTSD in wives who have lost their only child.