创伤后应激障碍中岛叶灰质密度减少:基于象素的磁共振形态学研究

Insular gray matter density reduction in posttraumatic stress disorder: A voxel-based morphometric study, by Chen et al. In the paper, the authors administered the imaging scans in 12 PTSD sufferers and 12 controls using a method called the voxel-based morphometry (VBM). They found that PTSD sufferers displayed reduced gray matter volumes in the left hippocampus, left anterior cingulate cortex, and (particularly) bilateral insulars when compared to those of controls. The study is interesting, and contributes to the knowledge of PTSD neuroimagings. However, there are several points that the authors have to pay attention to. 1. The authors declared that the VBM was a time-saving neuroimaging technique, better than the old methods relating to ROI calculations; and with the old methods, decreased activity in many brain areas including the insular had been reported (page 2, the middle of para 3), then what was the necessity to apply the current protocol? Just because of the time-saving of the VBM? Anyway, the authors need 1-2 pieces of rationale more to conduct the current study. 2. In the statistics section, the authors mentioned the use of ANCOVA, but they forgot to present the main effects, degrees of freedom, F values stuff when referring to the analyses of a series of the regional activities in the two groups. 3. In the Introduction section, they have mentioned the previous studies that regional changes were found in mPFC of the PTSD sufferers, but they failed to find a reduction in mPFC. Please discuss the discrepancy, since this is interesting (didn’t find the changes with newer techniques?). 4. Small points. Please fill-out the proper references in the 3rd para of page 2. Did the authors see that the notes left by a reader (several “Ref?”)? Please also prepare the references (in the text and in the list) in a serious way. Since there are plenty of references are just redundancies, for instances, refs 2 and 36; 47 and 48. Please clear these out.