Oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms, attachment, and PTSD : Results from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study

The human oxytocin system is implicated in social behavior and stress recovery. Polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) may interact with attachment style to predict stress-related psychopathology like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The objective of this study was to examine independent and interactive effects of the OXTR single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs53576, which has been associated with stress reactivity, support-seeking, and PTSD in prior studies, and attachment style on risk for PTSD in a nationally representative sample of 2163 European-American (EA) U.S.

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Intranasal Oxytocin May Prevent PTSD

Administering a commonly available hormone via a nasal spray could help prevent the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and reduce symptoms in those who already have the condition, results of several clinical studies suggest.

Intranasal oxytocin significantly reduced the likelihood of the development of PTSD among patients in an emergency department (ED) who had a high degree of baseline trauma symptoms, said Miranda Olff, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

 

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Day patient treatment for traumatic grief: preliminary evaluation of a one-year treatment programme for patients with multiple and traumatic losses

Background: Bereaved individuals who have lost a loved one under traumatic circumstances can develop symptoms of Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) and/or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is particularly common in refugees, as they frequently have been confronted with multiple traumatic losses. For patients with severe PTSD and traumatic grief a treatment programme was developed, embedding individual traumatic grief focused therapy in a group-based multidisciplinary day patient treatment programme.

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Narrative Exposure Therapy VS. Present-Centered Therapy with Older Adults : Results from an RCT

Older adults present a growing population in our society and in our mental health system. Among older adults, PTSD is a serious, but frequently hidden psychiatric disorder with various potential trajectories. Elderly patients may have been exposed to multiple traumatic events. Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) was developed to address cumulative traumatic memories and aims at connecting them to context and meaning within an autobiographic narrative. Present Centered Therapy (PCT) targets current stressors with a solution-focused approach.

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VA's Open Data

Open data is VA data that is freely available to the public. It is a by-product of the work the VA does for Veterans, and is not personal data (names, addresses, birthplace, etc…).The idea of open data is that public data should be easily accessible and usable by anyone to create products like web or mobile apps, infographics, or stories - the sky is really the limit.For years, government data has made it possible for innovators and entrepreneurs to create products of value for the American people (if you have ever used a GPS you have benefited from one of these products).

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Long-silenced songs of Holocaust survivors are rediscovered

When the death camps and ghettos of Europe were liberated at the end of World War II, a psychologist from Chicago visited former prisoners and recorded their interviews. Unheard for decades, a long-missing reel of songs has been rediscovered, offering a haunting document of the horrors of the Holocaust. David C. Barnett of PBS member station WVIZ reports.

David Boder’s recordings are among the earliest testimonies from Holocaust survivors. And long-missing reels of songs from this collection were recently discovered at the University of Akron, Ohio.

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Grief following homicidal loss

Homicidally bereaved individuals have to deal with the notion that their loved one

is deliberately taken from them: the death is caused by the premeditated action of

another individual, most often unexpected. While the psychological consequences

for the people left behind are assumed to be great, few studies systematically

examined psychopathology following homicidal bereavement. The aim of this

dissertation was threefold. First of all, adaptation to homicidal loss was examined,

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Lives on hold : A qualitative study of young refugees' resilience strategies.

Although the literature on positive adjustment following traumatic events is growing, only a few studies have examined this phenomenon in young refugees. Using the social-ecological framework, the aim of this study was to identify factors and processes that according to young refugees promote their resilience. A total of 16 treatment-seeking refugees aged 13-21years, living in the Netherlands, were interviewed.

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Epigenome-wide association of PTSD from heterogeneous cohorts with a common multi-site analysis pipeline

Compelling evidence suggests that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation play a role in stress regulation and in the etiologic basis of stress related disorders such as Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Here we describe the purpose and methods of an international consortium that was developed to study the role of epigenetics in PTSD.

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Neuroendocrine and neuroimmune markers in PTSD : pre-, peri- and post-trauma glucocorticoid and inflammatory dysregulation

We review current knowledge on how posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with dysregulation of the most commonly studied markers of the endocrine and immune systems pre-, peri- and post-trauma. Lower basal cortisol output, enhanced glucocorticoid receptor function, and a proinflammatory state have been most consistently found in PTSD, with considerable variability among studies and participants. Longitudinal research is scarce, but there is converging evidence that biological dysregulation is present before PTSD onset.

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