The relationship between response inhibition and posttraumatic stress symptom clusters in adolescent earthquake survivors: An event-related potential study

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients experience impaired response inhibition. Little is known about the relationship between response inhibition abnormalities and distinct PTSD symptom clusters. This study investigated the relationship between response inhibition processing and a five-factor model of posttraumatic stress symptomatology in adolescents. The event-related potentials of 54 unmedicated adolescent earthquake survivors (age 15-18 years) were recorded as they completed a Go/NoGo task. The PTSD Checklist-Specific Stressor Version (PCL-S) was used to assess PTSD symptoms. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between the five symptom-cluster model and response inhibition processing. The results revealed that the avoidance symptom cluster score, but not the numbing or other clusters' scores, was positively associated with NoGo-P3 latency. These results suggest that a specific PTSD symptom cluster--avoidance--has a distinct association with the slowed speed of the late step of response inhibition processing, i.e., decision or success of response inhibition in adolescent earthquake survivors.