Can the legacy of trauma be passed down the generations?

Our children and grandchildren are shaped by the genes they inherit from us, but new research is revealing that experiences of hardship or violence can leave their mark too.

 

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‘Built for expansion’ : the‘social life’of the WHO’smental health GAP Intervention Guide

The focus of this study is the WHO’s mhGAP-Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG)2.0 (2016), an evidence-based tool and guideline to help detect, diagnose andmanage the most common mental disorders, designed for use by non-specialistsglobally but particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This research is astarting point in tracing the multiple‘doings’of mhGAP-IG–connectingquestions of how it is‘done’and what does it‘do’–to the living histories andwider global mental health assemblages that make the tool possible and shape itsglobal circulation.

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3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans, firefighters, and police officers : a randomised, double-blind, dose-response, phase 2 clinical trial

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent in military personnel and first responders, many of whom do not respond to currently available treatments. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for treating chronic PTSD in this population.

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Overanxious and underslept

Are you feeling anxious? Did you sleep poorly last night? Sleep disruption is a recognized feature of all anxiety disorders. Here, we investigate the basic brain mechanisms underlying the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss. Additionally, we explore whether subtle, societally common reductions in sleep trigger elevated next-day anxiety. Finally, we examine what it is about sleep, physiologically, that provides such an overnight anxiety-reduction benefit.

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Posttraumatic stress disorder in partners following severe postpartum haemorrhage : A prospective cohort study

Background: Partners of women are increasingly present during childbirth and may be exposed to a traumatic experience. Since parents’ mental health issues (i.e. posttraumatic stress disorder) have been shown to increase the risk of problems in the child’s development, it is important to identify these risk factors. Partners often describe severe postpartum haemorrhage as traumatic.

 

Aim: Whether witnessing severe postpartum haemorrhage is a risk factor for developing posttraumatic stress disorder in partners.

 

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Symptoms of prolonged grief, posttraumatic stress, and depression in recently bereaved people : symptom profiles, predictive value, and cognitive behavioural correlates

Purpose: Prior latent class analyses (LCA) have focused on people who were bereaved more than 6 months earlier. Research has yet to examine patterns and correlates of emotional responses in the frst few months of bereavement. We examined whether subgroups could be identifed among very recently (≤6 months) bereaved adults, based on their endorsement of symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression.

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Cannabinoids for the treatment of mental disorders and symptoms of mental disorders : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Medicinal cannabinoids, including medicinal cannabis and pharmaceutical cannabinoids and their synthetic derivatives, such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have been suggested to have a therapeutic role in certain mental disorders. We analysed the available evidence to ascertain the effectiveness and safety of all types of medicinal cannabinoids in treating symptoms of various mental disorders. 

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Danger- and non-danger-based stressors and their relations to posttraumatic deprecation or growth in Norwegian veterans deployed to Afghanistan

Objective: This study aimed to explore how exposure to danger-based and non-dangerbased stressors may influence personal changes in veterans (N = 4053) after deployment to Afghanistan.

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Patterns and Predictors of Change in Trauma-Focused Treatments for War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Objective: We evaluated patterns and predictors of change from three efficacy trials of trauma-focused cognitive–behavioral treatments (TF-CBT) among service members (N = 702; mean age = 32.88; 89.4% male; 79.8% non-Hispanic/Latino). Rates of clinically significant change were also compared with other trials. Method: The trials were conducted in the same setting with identical measures. The primary outcome was symptom severity scores on the PTSD Symptom Scale—Interview Version (PSS-I; Foa, Riggs, Dancu, & Rothbaum, 1993).

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International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex- and ancestryspecific genetic risk loci

The risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma is heritable, but robust common variants have yet to be identified. In a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls we conduct a genome-wide association study of PTSD. We demonstrate SNP-based heritability estimates of 5–20%, varying by sex. Three genome-wide significant loci are identified, 2 in European and 1 in African-ancestry analyses. Analyses stratified by sex implicate 3 additional loci in men.

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