The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
2018
Christina Sophia Albott, Kelvin O Lim, Miriam K Forbes et al.
The present study examined the efficacy, safety, and durability of repeated ketamine infusions for the treatment of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in a sample of veterans. Individuals with comorbid DSM-5-defined PTSD and DSM-IV-defined major depressive disorder (N = 15) received 6 intravenous ketamine infusions (0.5 mg/kg) on a...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2018
Jeffrey R Bishop, Adam M Lee, Lauren J Mills et al.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an effective non-pharmacologic treatment for veterans with PTSD. Extensive work has identified epigenetic factors related to PTSD disease risk and pathophysiology, but how these factors influence treatment response is unclear. Serotonin signaling and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning may be perturbed in PTSD and are molecular...
Military Medicine
2018
Robert E Herron, Brian Rees
Current treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are only partially effective. This study evaluated whether an extensively researched stress reduction method, the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique, can reduce the PTSD symptoms of veterans. Previous research suggested that TM practice can decrease veterans' PTSD symptoms. A one-group pretest-posttest design was used to...
European Journal of Psychotraumatology
2018
Harald Bækkelund, Paul Frewen, Ruth A. Lanius et al.
ABSTRACT Background: The four-dimensional (‘4-D’) model has been proposed as a theoretical framework to understand and delineate trauma-related dissociative experiences, categorizing symptoms into trauma-related altered states of consciousness (TRASC) and normal waking consciousness (NWC), which occur along four dimensions: time, thought, body and emotion. Objective: The main aim of the present...
Human Brain Mapping
December 20, 2017
Daniela Rabellino, Maria Densmore, Sherain Harricharan et al.
64 citations
The bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BNST) is a subcortical structure involved in anticipatory and sustained reactivity to threat and is thus essential to the understanding of anxiety and stress responses. Although chronic stress and anxiety represent a hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to date, few studies have examined the functional connectivity of the BNST in PTSD. Here,...
Clinical Psychology Review
December 1, 2017
Autumn M Gallegos, Hugh F Crean, Wilfred R Pigeon et al.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic and debilitating disorder that affects the lives of 7-8% of adults in the U.S. Although several interventions demonstrate clinical effectiveness for treating PTSD, many patients continue to have residual symptoms and ask for a variety of treatment options. Complementary health approaches, such as meditation and yoga, hold promise for treating...
Psychiatric News
November 30, 2017
Richard Karel
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) holds promise to once again become a therapeutic tool. After 16 years of preliminary clinical trials, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late August gave expedited approval for multiple phase 3 trials of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) as a potential "breakthrough therapy" for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The complex...
Sleep
November 21, 2017
Andrea J Phelps, Richard Kanaan, Christopher Worsnop et al.
80 citations
Study Objectives: This study used ambulatory polysomnography (PSG) to investigate post-traumatic nightmares of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The key research question was whether post-traumatic nightmares occur in both rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep, and if so, whether nightmares in each sleep stage differed in content, phenomenology, and heart rate response. Underlying...
Human Brain Mapping
November 13, 2017
Isadora Olivé, Maria Densmore, Sherain Harricharan et al.
45 citations
OBJECTIVES: The innate alarm system (IAS) models the neurocircuitry involved in threat processing in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here, we investigate a primary subcortical structure of the IAS model, the superior colliculus (SC), where the SC is thought to contribute to the mechanisms underlying threat-detection in PTSD. Critically, the functional connectivity between the SC and other...
Neuropsychologia
November 1, 2017
Sherain Harricharan, Andrew A Nicholson, Maria Densmore et al.
64 citations
The vestibular system integrates multisensory information to monitor one's bodily orientation in space, and is influenced by interoceptive awareness. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves typically alterations in interoceptive and bodily self-awareness evidenced by symptoms of hyperarousal, as well as of emotional detachment, including emotional numbing, depersonalization, and...