Differentiated processing of emotional cues in adolescents and young adults with ICD‐11 PTSD and complex PTSD after child abuse

BACKGROUND: The recent update of the International Classification of Diseases 11th revision (ICD‐11) introduced the diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) as a distinct entity from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Because psychophysiological alterations are a core diagnostic feature of PTSD and CPTSD, the aim of the current study was to examine potential distinctive patterns in cortical and cardiac responses to emotional words in adolescent and young adult patients with PTSD and CPTSD. METHOD: Event‐related potentials and heart rate responses were studied in 81 adolescent and young adult participants, of which 17 individuals were diagnosed with ICD‐11 PTSD and 32 individuals with CPTSD, each after childhood sexual and/or physical abuse. Thirty‐two individuals served as healthy controls. The paradigm consisted of a passive reading task with neutral, positive, physically threatening, and socially threatening words. RESULTS: Differentiated early processing of emotional words was indicated by differences on P1 and left EPN components. Additionally, PTSD and CPTSD patients presented with specific patterns of heart rate responses to emotional words. In CPTSD patients, heart rate reactions to emotional words were more variable than in PTSD patients. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide early evidence of differentiated cortical and cardiac response patterns in adolescent and young adult patients with CPTSD and PTSD, supporting a nosological distinction between PTSD and complex PTSD. However, due to small and unequal sample sizes, findings presented in the current study are preliminary and require future research.