R Yehuda

..Future studies should explore the temporal relationship between HPA activity, sleep disturbances, and psychopathology after a traumatic event...

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..This review considers the extent to which neuroendocrine alterations observed in PTSD may be useful in understanding cortisol alterations involved in cancer...

..Insofar as increased sensitivity to glucocorticoids has been linked with PTSD, the actions of SER on the lysozyme IC(50-DEX) suggest that this medication may target a biologic alteration associated with PTSD pathophysiology...

..In addition, subject compliance is a serious consideration in designing studies that employ home salivary collections...

..Further studies are warranted to examine the psychometric properties of this measure...

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..Understanding why this is so will provide clues for the development of therapeutic interventions for those people who do develop stress-related psychopathology, or even for the prevention of adverse outcomes...

..This article summarizes important neuroendocrine observations in cortisol and provides strategies for understanding what has emerged over the past two decades, to be a complex and sometimes contradictory literature...

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..The authors therefore examined the change in ACTH and cortisol before and after cortisol administration, which acts at central feedback sites in addition to peripheral targets...

..In conclusion, further investigation of the actions of TPM on GR and other neuroendocrine systems may prove useful in understanding some of the other established clinical effects of this agent...

..There is emerging interest in examining the role of plasma neuropeptide Y (NPY) as a protective stress factor...

..In addition, however, neuroendocrine changes, such as lower cortisol levels, also may influence formation and processing of traumatic memories and may be associated with the underlying pathology of PTSD...

..However, increased severity of rapid forgetting may be a specific alteration in older combat veterans, likely reflecting aspects of both combat exposure and aging...

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..Sources of variance caused by methodologic and interpretative differences are highlighted, but the disparate findings are explained as illustrating a more complex neuroendocrinology of PTSD than has previously been described...

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..We conclude that the experience of childhood trauma may be an important factor in the transmission of PTSD from parent to child...

..Sensitization of the HPA axis is consistent with the clinical picture of hyperreactivity and hyperresponsiveness in PTSD...

..To investigate the implications of age-related HPA axis alterations on cognition, we examined correlations between parameters reflecting circadian cortisol release and implicit and explicit memory performance...

..The authors' goal was to determine whether cortisol circadian rhythm alterations observed in younger subjects with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are also present in geriatric trauma survivors with PTSD...

..It is therefore unclear whether relationships between memory and symptoms differ over time among older persons with and without PTSD...

..The study examined the association between cortisol and putative risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of subjects at increased risk for the development of PTSD...

..This article examines some of the biological alterations in PTSD and develops a framework for understanding the development progression of the neurobiology of this disorder...

..Results of these studies have provided an important rationale for using glucocorticoid strategies in the treatment of PTSD...

..The identification of parental PTSD as a risk factor for PTSD in offspring of Holocaust survivors defines a sample in which the biological and psychological correlates of risk for PTSD can be further examined...

..This review will discuss these new findings and their treatment implications...

..The findings suggest that there may be opportunities for developing therapeutic strategies using glucocorticoids in the treatment of aging combat veterans...

..The authors conclude that cortisol levels are affected by change in PTSD status and age...

..We emphasize how knowledge about individual differences related to genetic and epigenetic factors in behavioral and brain responses to stress offers the hope of a deeper understanding of PTSD...

..The results suggest that dissociative symptoms are related to current psychiatric symptomatology, including PTSD, rather than representing an enduring trait or preexisting risk factor for the development of PTSD...

..CONCLUSIONS: The response to DEX is generally similar in older and younger trauma survivors, but the findings suggest that age, symptom severity, and lifetime trauma exposure characteristics may influence this response...

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..Thus, even the most biological of explanations for vulnerability must at some point deal with the fact that a traumatic event has occurred...

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..To investigate the effect of PTSD, the authors conducted a 0.5-mg DST, which is more sensitive than the 1.0-mg DST for detection of increased cortisol suppression, in a group of subjects with personality disorders...

..03) in PTSD. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first in vitro demonstration of an alteration in target tissue sensitivity to glucocorticoids in PTSD. The lower lysozyme IC(50-DEX) might be related to the risk factor of prior exposure to trauma...

..These findings suggest there are phenomenologic differences in the affective symptoms experienced by patients with PTSD and with MDD and that mood variability may distinguish between them...

..The authors' goal was to test empirically a commonly held assumption that the depression in borderline personality disorder is primarily anaclitic...

..Childhood trauma is a risk factor for anxiety disorders in adulthood. One possible mechanism for this association is an increased neuroendocrine response to stress in adults with a history of childhood trauma...

..We performed a longitudinal study of holocaust survivors with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by assessing symptoms and other measures at two intervals, approximately 10 years apart...

..We previously reported a diminished delta sleep and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response to metyrapone in men with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this study, we aimed to extend these findings to women...

..This small study emphasizes the importance of dissecting the neurobiology of posttraumatic stress versus dissociative traumatic responses...

..The negative association between performance and age may reflect accelerated cognitive decline in posttraumatic stress disorder...

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..These results suggest the potential utility of including neuroendocrine measures in the assessment of treatment outcome in PTSD...

..The mechanisms by which these neuroendocrine alterations may influence the formation and processing of traumatic memories are discussed...

..These data also confirm, in a naturalistic sample, the previously observed negative association of urinary cortisol excretion with development of PTSD in the aftermath of severe trauma exposure...

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..The results suggest that the delta sleep response to metyrapone is a measure of the brain response to increases in hypothalamic CRF. These data also suggest that the ACTH and sleep EEG response to hypothalamic CRF is decreased in PTSD...

..This study investigated basal and stress-induced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis alterations in dissociative disorders (DDs)...

..The purpose of the study was to search for the intrapsychic correlates of individual differences in cortisol levels in male Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder...

..The goal of this study was to determine serial CSF norepinephrine levels in patients with PTSD...

..To examine whether PTSD or post-deployment health symptoms in veterans of the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield/Storm) are associated with enhanced suppression of the pituitary-adrenal axis to low-dose dexamethasone (DEX)...

..We propose that future studies consider the unique consequences of combat trauma and develop treatments that incorporate the complex nature of the exposure and response characteristic of a veteran population...

..The implications of these findings for the course and pathophysiology of PTSD are also discussed...

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..Two recent reports linking maternal PTSD and low offspring cortisol prompted us to examine the relative contributions of maternal vs. paternal PTSD in the prediction of PTSD and other psychiatric diagnoses in offspring...

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..The metyrapone stimulation test was performed to further characterize hypothalamic-pituitary activity in Gulf War veterans (GWV) and its relationship to unexplained medical symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)...

..Given similarities between neuroendocrine aspects of PTSD and ELS, such as in reduced cortisol signaling and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) responsiveness, some aspects of the biology of PTSD may reflect biological correlates of risk...

..Differences in brain metabolic responses between GW veterans with and without PTSD may reflect differences in peripheral and central GR responsiveness...

..Next steps in this line of research will be to test this model prospectively in a sample of 400 police academy recruits assessed during training and currently being followed for the first 2 years of police service...

..Most of these findings have been generated from inpatient clinical samples...

..PTSD is associated with considerable cognitive burden with age. Longitudinal studies of older subjects are warranted to examine whether PTSD is associated with accelerated aging or progressive memory loss...

..This approach has not been validated. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) in medically ill children who were referred for evaluation by their pediatricians...

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..Alexithymia scores were negatively associated with catecholamine response to the video challenge but no association was found between alexithymia scores and cortisol reactivity...

..Risk and resilience can perhaps more appropriately be considered specific to symptom picture rather than merely development of pathology...

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..Larger temporal lobe volumes may be associated with early traumatization and survival or may reflect some other characteristic of Holocaust survivors...

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..The current study tests this hypothesis...

..This trauma-related facilitation of explicit memory, together with generally poorer explicit memory, may help to explain the bi-directional nature of the memory impairments in PTSD...

..The restorative effects of HCORT on metabolism and working memory provide a rationale for examining the therapeutic benefits of glucocorticoid manipulation in aging PTSD patients...

..Since low cortisol levels are particularly associated with the presence of maternal PTSD the findings suggest the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms...

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..The authors examined instances of past sexual abuse and related demographic characteristics in the self-reports of a select group of married observant Jewish women...

..The authors evaluated memory performance in Holocaust survivors and its association with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and age...

..The authors examined the relationship of borderline personality disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with respect to the role of trauma and its timing...

..Survivors with and without PTSD had similar mean levels of cortisol at both time points. Cortisol levels at 6 months negatively correlated with self-reported PTSD symptoms within PTSD subjects...

..The authors compared responses of female domestic violence survivors and a matched group of nontraumatized participants to a low-dose (0.5 mg) dexamethasone suppression test (DST)...

..The purpose of the present study was to investigate salivary cortisol responses to low-dose dexamethasone in adolescents with PTSD...

..These results support the conclusion that the latter abnormalities represent antecedent, familial vulnerability factors for developing chronic PTSD upon exposure to a traumatic event...

..They also partially confirm ERP data reported in combat victims with PTSD suggesting that PTSD may induce neurobiological consequences that transcend type of eliciting trauma as well as ethnic and cultural factors...

..CONCLUSION: Both the potential renormalization of low cortisol levels in improving chronic PTSD and the putative vulnerability to develop PTSD in subjects with increased dexamethasone suppression need further research...

..Peripheral levels of NE, shortly after traumatic events, are poor risk indicators of subsequent PTSD among civilian trauma victims. Simplified biological models may not properly capture the complex aetiology of PTSD...

..Female subjects had lower ACTH levels than males. PTSD in females was associated with higher levels of ACTH. In unselected cohorts of trauma survivors, PTSD is not preceded by a detectable abnormality of peripheral HPA axis hormones...

..Within the range of values seen in our subjects, cortisol may have a trophic effect on the hippocampus...

..The subjects will be further subdivided so that there are 40 in each group with and without PTSD; half of each subgroup will have a current depressive disorder. Thus, we will recruit a total of 20 subjects in each of 12 subgroups. ..

..We also expect the conference to be attractive to educated lay individuals such as consumers, family members, advocates, and members of the press who are interested in tracking the development of knowledge in this area. ..

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..The development of models of prevention and treatment of PTSD can only occur following an understanding of individual risk factors and their interactions with event exposure. ..