View clinical trials related to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Filter by:The present study will: Aim 1: Enroll 15 family members of CA patients to (a) pilot recruitment procedures, (b) estimate retention, and (c) assess acceptability of study procedures. Family members will be randomized to either complete an ICU diary or to a control condition, and will complete surveys in the ICU, at patient discharge, and 30 days post-discharge. Aim 2: Obtain an estimate of the association of intervention v. control with (i) family member fear (operationalized as cardiac anxiety about the patients' cardiac condition) at hospital discharge and (ii) family member PTSS 30 days post-discharge. Exploratory Aims: Obtain an estimate of the association of intervention v. control with family member aversive cognitions towards exercise at hospital discharge.
PROJECT SUMMARY: PTSD is a debilitating psychiatric condition precipitated by exposure to extreme, or life threatening, trauma with an estimated lifetime prevalence between 8% and 9% in U.S. adults. One core symptom of PTSD is intense psychological distress in the presence of stimuli that "resemble" one or more aspects of the trauma experience (DSM-IV). This phenomenon referred to as stimulus generalization has received surprisingly little empirical testing in the context of clinical anxiety in general, and PTSD more specifically. The current proposal represents the first effort to study the neurobiology and pharmacology of this PTSD-relevant learning phenomenon across those with and without PTSD. The objective of this particular proposal is to apply fMRI and pharmacologic methods to: 1) identify brain mechanisms associated with generalization of conditioned fear and 2) examine the pharmacologic modifiability of levels of generalization using a partial agonist at the NMDA receptor complex (D-cycloserine) shown to increase discrimination of CS+ (danger cue) and CS- (safety cue) in animal studies.