Catecholamine Function In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

This is an all-embracing reference that offers analyses and discussions of contemporary issues in the field of PTSD. The book brings together scientific material from leading experts in the field relating to a wide range of important current topics across disciplines. These include the early identification of PTSD and subsequent treatment, to social and behavioral studies, to biochemical, molecular and genetic research. With more than 125 chapters organized in 12 major sections, this is the most complete single resource on PTSD.

A collection of the most important writings on understanding and treating PTSD Essential Papers on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder collects the most important writings on the comprehension and treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Editor Mardi J. Horowitz provides a concise and illuminating introductory essay on the evolution of our understanding of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and establishes the conceptual framework and terminology necessary to understand the disorder. The collected essays which follow provide a rich and comprehensive take on the complexity of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, illuminating such issues as the variety of individual and cultural responses, the roles of pre- and post-traumatic causative forces, and the fluctuating complexities of diagnostic categories. Divided into sections addressing the broad topics of diagnosis, etiology, and treatment, Essential Papers on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder combines classic essays with more challenging and controversial approaches. Contributors include Sigmund Freud, Erich Lindemann, Leo Eitinger, Carol C. Nadelson, Malkah T. Notman, Hannah Zackson, Janet Gornick, Bonnie L. Green, Mary C. Grace, Jacob D. Lindy, James L. Titchener, Joanne G. Lindy, Lenore C. Terr, Rosemarie Galante, Dario Foa, Edna B. Foa, Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, David S. Riggs, Tamara B. Murdock, James H. Shore, Ellie L. Tatum, William M. Vollmer, Roger K. Pittman, Scott P. Orr, Dennis F. Forgue, Bruce Altman, Jacob B. de Jong, Lawrence R. Herz, Judith Lewis Herman, Rachel Yehuda, Alexander McFarlane, Frank W. Putnam, Robert Jay Lifton, Eric Olson, Nancy Wilner, Nancy Kaltrider, William Alvarez, Michael R. Trimble, Epstein, Terence M. Keane, Rose T. Zinering, Juesta M. Caddell, John H. Krystal, Thomas R. Kosten, Steven Southwick, John W. Mason, Bruce D. Perry, Earl L. Giller, David Spiegel, Thurman Hunt, Harvey E. Dondershire, Bessel A. van der Kolk, Peter J. Lang, Robert S. Pynoos, Spencer Eth, Matthew J. Friedman, Francine Shapiro, John P. Wilson, Jacob D. Lindy, I. Lisa McCann, and Laurie Anne Pearlman.

The emotional and behavioral symptoms associated with PTSD have been widely studied, but until recently, much less was known about neuropsychological aspects of the disorder. This volume brings together leading experts to synthesize current knowledge on how trauma affects the brain. Integrating compelling insights from neurobiology with clinical and cognitive perspectives, the book presents cutting-edge theoretical advances with major implications for assessment and treatment. Clearly written and well documented, the volume explores the emergence of neuropsychological dysfunction in specific trauma populations: children, adults, older adults, and victims of closed-head injury. Coverage encompasses a range of chronic problems with memory, attention, and information processing, including biases in the ways that PTSD sufferers attend to and remember emotionally relevant information, as well as how they encode and retrieve trauma-related memories. Throughout, authors back up their arguments with salient empirical research, highlighting key findings from functional neuroimaging and electrophysiology. Methodological dilemmas and controversies are also addressed, such as the challenges of studying a disorder with frequent psychiatric and medical comorbidities. Timely and authoritative, this comprehensive work provides vital knowledge for trauma specialists and other researchers and clinicians, including neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists. It will also be of interest to advanced students in these areas.

The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common and disabling condition that often goes undiagnosed for years, and even when the diagnosis is made, treatment is frequently ineffective, especially for combat veterans. Cognitive behavioural therapy with imaginal exposure is considered first-line treatment, but many cannot or will not engage in imaginal exposure, which is not surprising, since avoidance of reminders of the trauma is a defining feature of PTSD. Novel technologies offer an alternative to facilitate exposure therapy, through virtual reality (VR). This book outlines state-of-the-art approaches to improving the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD, with a particular emphasis on the promise and pitfalls associated with VR exposure therapy. The world’s leading experts in this cutting edge field describe their VR work in phobias and other mental disorders, and chart a course for future studies to improve the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.

Trauma and disaster throw lives into chaos and fill people with the fear of loss, injury, and death. Although most individuals experience only transitory posttraumatic symptoms, others experience the effects of the disaster long after the traumatic event when new experiences remind them of the past. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Acute and Long-Term Responses to Trauma and Disaster provides clinicians, researchers, and policy makers with an examination of current advances in research and treatment by recognized experts at the cutting edge of innovation. This timely book incorporates DSM-IV criteria and the new diagnostic category acute stress disorder, which emphasizes the breadth of posttraumatic stress symptoms and disorders and the importance of distinguishing between acute and long-term responses to traumatic events. Individual chapters go beyond PTSD to examine other posttraumatic disorders and responses, the mechanisms of transmission of posttraumatic stress, and its effects on behavior and health in natural and societal disasters and traumas, including war. This volume pays particular attention to the array of psychiatric responses to trauma, including PTSD and the unfolding of illness and recovery over time. Posttraumatic responses are considered across individual, group, family, and community perspectives and from the vantage point of developmental systems from childhood to older adult life.

The book collates the latest innovations in cognitive behavioral therapy for child and adolescent anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).