BACKGROUND Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common psychological complication after radical lung cancer surgery and has a significant impact on postoperative recovery and quality of life. Esketamine, a new anesthetic agent, may be protective against postoperative PTSD through modulation of neurotransmitter systems and anti-inflammatory actions. AIM To explore the underlying mechanisms...
Ketamine combined with psychotherapy has shown promise in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but predictors of clinical benefit remain unclear. In this systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis (IPDMA), we examined patient- and treatment-level predictors of PTSD symptom change after combined treatment. Eligible studies combined ketamine with psychotherapy in...
Background: Traumatic nightmares are a core feature in adolescents with complex PTSD (CPTSD) exposed to early and repeated trauma, maintaining hyperactivity and dysregulation. Despite their prevalence and functional impact, targeted treatments for youth remain scarce. Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) is a brief cognitive-behavioral intervention effective in adults, but evidence in adolescents...
Background: Depression, anxiety,, and PTSD are leading global causes of disability. Standard interventions utilize slow mechanisms of action, high attrition, and significant accessibility barriers. While intravenous (IV) and intranasal ketamine are rapid-acting alternatives, high cost and intensive logistical requirements limit adoption. Sublingual (SL) at-home ketamine addresses some gaps but...
Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder is frequently accompanied by persistent anxiety, hyperarousal, sleep disturbance, and impaired emotional regulation. Mindfulness-based interventions may support trauma-exposed patients by improving present-moment awareness, distress tolerance, and regulation of intrusive thoughts and bodily arousal. Objective: This study evaluated whether an eight-week...
Scientific ReportsJune 14, 2026Bar Eilat Yogev, Gal Levi, Noa Efroni et al.
Alcohol consumption before trauma is a prevalent but understudied risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study investigated whether acute ethanol exposure prior to trauma modulates PTSD-like symptom development in rats, identified hippocampal mechanisms involved, and tested an early post-trauma intervention. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received ethanol (1.6 g/kg, 40% v/v,...
PsychoactivesJune 8, 2026Fizza Mitter, Anton Sheptooha, Janni Leung et al.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains inadequately treated by existing pharmacological and psychological interventions, prompting growing interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Although randomised controlled trials have evaluated several psychedelic agents for PTSD, to our knowledge, no prior PTSD-specific synthesis has quantitatively examined multiple agent classes within a...
Scientific ReportsJune 5, 2026Amaury C Mengin, Julie Rolling, Walid Oulehri et al.
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) hospitalizations confront individuals with imminent death and may cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In contrast, traumatic events may lead to positive psychological outcomes such as post-traumatic growth. As consciousness is altered, near-death experiences (NDEs) may occur and be associated with post-traumatic growth. Our cross-sectional, monocentric study...
Aims: REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is characterised by loss of physiological REM atonia, resulting in dream-enactment behaviours that may be violent and pose significant risk to patients and bed partners. RBD may be idiopathic, secondary to neurological disease, or medication-induced. Medications, including antidepressants and sedative-hypnotics, have been implicated in precipitating or...
Introduction Ketamine-assisted therapy shows rapid benefit in treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and PTSD (Walsh et al. BJPsych Open 2022;8:e19). The Roots to Thrive Ketamine assisted Therapy (RTT-KaT) program is a unique 12-week program that combines 12 Community of Practice (group therapy) sessions and three ketamine medicine sessions (Tsang et al. Ther Adv Psychopharmacol...
Introduction Aphantasia, the inability to voluntarily generate mental visual images, may influence emotional processing and memory encoding. While its effects on memory and cognition have been studied, its role in traumatic memory and PTSD remains underexplored. Understanding how aphantasia interacts with PTSD, depression, and social phobia is crucial, underscoring the need for further...
Introduction TBI patients often suffer from severe, treatment-resistant depression and PTSD. Ketamine shows promise in non-TBI populations, but its efficacy in TBI patients needs exploration for efficacy and tolerability. Objectives Evaluate ketamine’s clinical effectiveness and safety (PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5 scores) in post-TBI patients, comparing IM, intranasal, and oral routes. Methods Design:...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) persists when stress biases memory systems-broadening threat engrams, weakening context-appropriate inhibition, and rendering extinction fragile. Integrating preclinical and human evidence, we argue that these liabilities are tractable within a circuit-informed framework that aligns behavioral procedures with the biology of fear memory. Extinction can be...
Sleep paralysis (SP) is a parasomnia disorder connected to being unable to move your body though the experiencing person remains conscious. Factors involving this disorder are stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), lifestyle factors including the amount of sleep, and the amount of caffeine consumed. Our study aim is to assess the symptoms, duration, time of occurrence, and body position...
Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, is widely used in trauma and emergency medicine for its rapid analgesic and sedative properties. While its efficacy in acute pain management is well established, concerns persist regarding its long-term psychological effects, particularly its potential role in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some studies...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains one of psychiatry's most challenging disorders, common, disabling, and biologically complex. Despite decades of research, only sertraline and paroxetine are FDA-approved, both with modest efficacy. Even first-line trauma-focused psychotherapies leave up to half of patients with persistent symptoms. However, advances in neurobiology are reframing...
In this commentary on Morland et al. (2026)'s recent State of the Science article on 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we aim to emphasize both MDMA's therapeutic promise and its unresolved scientific challenges. Although recent trials on MDMA-assisted interventions have reported encouraging reductions in PTSD symptoms, the...
Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains a challenging condition to treat. Nonpsychedelic pharmacotherapies have modest efficacy, and trauma-focused therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) demonstrate higher response rates than medications, yet they suffer from high dropout rates (25–35%) and limited...
Scientific ReportsMay 21, 2026Amy Z Wang, Carissa W Tomas, Sarah Stevens et al.
Research has identified functional connectivity abnormalities in the default mode network (DMN), a functional brain network theorized to be involved in self-referential processes, among trauma survivors. Event centrality (EC) is an important cognitive component of posttrauma stress disorder (PTSD) development that heavily involves self-referential processing and autobiographical memory....
Abstract Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is a novel and promising form of treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, clinicians may experience challenges in interpreting the existing evidence for PAT to make informed decisions about treatment recommendations and selection with their patients. Prior commentators have noted the hype surrounding public discussions of PAT. This...