Archives
All entries, chronologically...

Results of a study reported in the September issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggest that Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a greater risk for dementia than Veterans without PTSD, even those who suffered traumatic injuries during combat. Exposure to life threatening events, like war, can cause PTSD, and there are high rates among veterans. PSTD includes symptoms such as avoiding things or people that remind a person of the trauma, nightmares, difficulty with sleep, and mood problems.

Five years ago Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans caused the evacuation of 1.5 million Gulf Coast residents. After a year, 500,000 people remained displaced, many residing in highly transitional shelters, including the notorious FEMA trailer parks. Now at the five-year mark, substantial consequences from this prolonged displacement have resulted in widespread mental health issues in children living in the region, according to a new study by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a related white paper from the Children’s Health Fund (CHF).

Psychologists are not usually called to the battlefield, but the 2008-09 Gaza War gave Tel Aviv University researchers a unique picture of how anxiety manifests during stressful situations. In a new study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Prof. Yair Bar Haim of TAU’s Department of Psychology reports that people confronted with acute stress – daily rocket attacks – tend to dissociate from threats instead of becoming more vigilant. This research overturns accepted convention and may lead to better understanding of the mechanisms underlying acute stress reactions, he says.

There is a great deal of interest in factors that contribute to the vulnerability to developing post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. One factor that appears to contribute to the heritable vulnerability to PTSD is a variation in the gene that codes for the serotonin transporter, also known as the serotonin uptake site. Having a shorter version of the serotonin transporter gene appears to increase one’s risk for depression and PTSD after exposure to extremely stressful situations.

Young adult survivors of childhood cancers are four times more likely to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than their control group siblings, a Childhood Cancer Survivors Study has found. The study focused on 6,542 childhood cancer survivors over 18 who were diagnosed with cancer between 1970 and 1986 and 368 of their siblings as a [...]

Obtaining therapy via teleconference is just as effective as face-to-face sessions, according to a new research by Stéphane Guay, a psychiatry professor at the Université de Montréal. “Previous studies have shown that phobia therapy via teleconferencing was just as efficient as face to face contact,” says Dr. Guay, who is also director of the Trauma [...]

We recently alerted you to Eric Newhouse’s work to improve veterans’ access to much needed PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatments, such as neurofeedback and cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES). New evidence emerged today that supports Newhouse’s claim that soldiers need better and easier access to treatments. A new study showed that although the Department [...]

Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis VA Medical Center have identified a biological marker in the brains of those exhibiting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A group of 74 United States veterans were involved in the study, which for the first time objectively diagnoses PTSD using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive measurement of magnetic fields [...]

Studying animals in behavioral experiments has been a cornerstone of psychological research, but whether the observations are relevant for human behavior has been unclear. Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have identified an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts similar anxiety-related behavior in both humans and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals can be [...]
Recent Comments