Resilience and Modification of Brain Control Network Following November 13

This is a multiwave longitudinal neuroimaging study in a cohort of direct survivors of 11/13 Paris terrorist attacks. Both structural and functional brain imaging data will be collected at 8-12 months, 3 years, and 6 years after trauma in exposed participants as well as in control non-exposed participants. This project will capitalize on recent evidence showing that healthy participants can prevent unwanted images from entering consciousness using inhibitory control and memory suppression techniques, disrupting traces of the memories in sensory areas of the brain, and weakening their vividness and later reentrance. This process is believed to be affected in Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which is characterized by anxiety and persistent intrusive memory of the traumatic event with highly distressing contents. This project will thus provide a unique opportunity to observe the online and structural dysfunctions of intrusion control network following a severe psychological trauma and how such process may contribute to recovery and psychopathological dynamics. In addition, the disruption of social cognition and emotional processing following PTSD will also be investigated in relation to disrupted inhibitory control functioning.