Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Mechanisms and Possible Treatments

Psychological and Pharmacological Treatments for Adults With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Executive Summary

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that may develop following exposure to a traumatic event. According to the 4th edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR,”1 the essential feature of PTSD is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to a traumatic stressor. PTSD is characterized by three core symptom clusters: (1...

Neuroendocrinological and brain structural alterations in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in families of adolescent childhood cancer survivors.

OBJECTIVE To describe rates and concordance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in adolescent childhood cancer survivors and their mothers and fathers. METHOD Participants were 150 adolescent survivors of childhood cancer, 146 mothers, and 103 fathers who completed the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index...

The role of personality traits in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

BACKGROUND A number of studies have shown that although exposure to potentially traumatic events is common, development of PTSD is relatively rare, which is one of the reasons PTSD still remains a controversial psychiatric entity. The aim of this article was to provide an overview of the research on the role of personality traits in the vulnerability, resilience, posttraumatic growth and expres...

Memory mechanisms in posttraumatic stress disorder.

The authors present a new theory of the neurobiological mechanisms mediating the memory processes involved in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current fear-conditioning model accounts for learning that underlies certain central features of PTSD, but it fails to account for peritraumatic memory disturbances, episodic memory phenomena that also are characteristic of the disorder. A more ...