Altered Resting State Functional Connectivity Between High Order Cognitive and Low Level Perceptual Networks in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Motivation: Disease- and trauma-related alterations of functional connectivity within and between the high-order-cognitive networks (fronto-parietal, default-mode and salience network) and low-level-perceptual networks (auditory, visual and somato-motor network) in post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD) remains unclear. Goal(s): To disentangle PTSD- and trauma-related alterations of high-order-cognitive and low-level-perceptual network. Approach: We compared connectivity within and between high-order-cognitive and low-level-perceptual network among PTSD, trauma-exposed (TECs) and healthy controls via independent component analysis and seed-based functional connectivity (SBFC) analysis. Results: we found PTSD patients showed hyperconnectivity within high-order-cognitive network (FPN-DMN and within FPN) and between high-order-cognitive and low-level-perceptual network (FPN-VN) compared to TECs. Impact: Our results of dysfunction within and between different hierarchical network levels, with hyperconnectivity in high-order-cognitive network and between high-order-cognitive and low-level-perceptual network in PTSD were disease-related, which is associated with the key symptoms, potentially offering valuable targets for therapeutic interventions.