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Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have shown functional abnormalities in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), part of the prefrontal cortex. This area is activated typically during tasks involving interference from nonemotional stimuli, performance monitoring, response selection, error detection, and decision making. In most studies, patients with PTSD show exaggerated dACC responsivity on behavioral interference tasks. In this study of identical twins discordant for combat exposure, researchers investigated whether these functional abnormalities are acquired with PTSD or represent familial risk factors for its development.
Twelve combat-exposed Vietnam veterans with PTSD and their unexposed twins, as well as 14 com…