Neurological and Psychological Effects of Combat-Related Stress

Primary Outcomes (5)

• Change from baseline - PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) score

  PCL is questionnaire assessing posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. It contains 20 items on a severity scale of 0-4, measuring the existence and severity of post-traumatic symptoms. The minimal score, indicating no post-traumatic stress, is 0. The maximal score is 80, indicating extremely severe post-traumatic stress.

  4 years, from time point 1 to time point 5

• Neurological measures - Gray matter volume

  Gray matter volume, i.e. the density of brain cells in a particular region (outcome to be measured in cm3), to be derived from the MRI scans, and compared between the two groups across the various time points.

  4 years, from time point 1 to time point 5

• Neurological measures - Functional connectivity

  Functional connectivity, indicating the level of synchronous activity of certain brain regions during rest (temporal correlation is usually expressed as a Pearson's r); Also to be derived from the MRI scans, and compared between the two groups across the various time points.

  4 years, from time point 1 to time point 5

• Neurological measures - Structural connectivity

  Structural connectivity between regions of the brain (Diffusivity is measured as 10-3mm2.s-1) and the properties of the white matter (expressed with Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures, mainly Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD)); Also be derived from the MRI scans, and compared between the two groups across the various time points.

Conditions