# Using pre-pandemic baseline data in people with and without PTSD to study effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and brain emotion circuits

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO HEALTH SCI CAMPUS · 2022 · $224,288

## Abstract

Project Summary
 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused fear, stress, and emotional trauma due
to loss of lives, widespread sickness, extended social isolation, and financial insecurity. Pandemic-related
experiences can lead to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and other mental health problems and can
exacerbate pre-existing mental health conditions. Neuroimaging studies suggest that PTSS and other mental
health symptoms involve emotion dysregulation that emerges from functional and structural alterations of brain
emotion circuits. Extending pre-pandemic neuroimaging research on PTSD development, this application
proposes to use neuroimaging and behavioral data from adult pre-pandemic trauma survivors, who
subsequently developed or did not develop PTSD prior to the pandemic, as baselines from which to
longitudinally study pandemic effects on PTSS and associated brain emotion systems in these same subjects.
Pandemic emotional experiences associated with, e.g., coronavirus infection, social isolation, and financial
insecurity will be analyzed with respect to pre- vs. peri-pandemic changes in PTSS, other mental health
symptoms, brain structure, and brain activation to fear emotion related tasks. Peri-pandemic symptoms and
brain measures will also be compared in pre-pandemic PTSD vs. non-PTSD groups to test if these groups are
being affected in similar or different ways. Comparison of pre- vs. peri- pandemic data in the same subjects will
optimize resolution of how the pandemic is affecting mental health and brain function and structure and of how
the pandemic is affecting people with different pre-pandemic PTSD dispositions. The results will identify
ongoing mental health and brain effects of this pandemic and help prepare strategies to deal with its aftermath.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10372490
- **Project number:** 1R21MH126172-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO HEALTH SCI CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** Xin Wang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $224,288
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-03-03 → 2024-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10372490

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10372490, Using pre-pandemic baseline data in people with and without PTSD to study effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and brain emotion circuits (1R21MH126172-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10372490. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*