Evoked potential evidence for right brain activity during the recall of traumatic memories.
Auditory probe evoked potential attenuation was measured as an index of hemispheric activity in 10 subjects with a history of childhood trauma and 10 matched subjects without such history while they recalled a neutral memory and then a traumatic memory. There were prominent group differences in degree of cerebral laterality between memory tasks (P = 0.02). The trauma group had a significant left dominant asymmetry during the neutral memory (P = 0.02), which markedly shifted to the right during the unpleasant memory (P = 0.007 for degree of shift). Normal control subjects did not display a significant asymmetry during either task, nor did they show a significant shift between tasks.
Schiffer
F
F
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, USA.
Teicher
M H
MH
Papanicolaou
A C
AC
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology