http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Scientists have for the first time selectively blocked a conditioned fear memory in humans with a behavioral manipulation. Participants remained free of the fear memory for at least a year. The research builds on emerging evidence from animal studies that reactivating an emotional memory opens a 6-hour window of opportunity in which a training procedure can alter it. http://www.physorg.com/news179587833.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:31:48 EST news179587833 (AP) -- Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images. http://www.physorg.com/news177919314.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:20:01 EST news177919314 In a new study, psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) are able to see in detail for the first time how various regions of the human brain respond when people experience an unexpected or traumatic event. The study could lead to the creation of biological measures that could identify people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or identify PTSD sufferers who would benefit from specific treatments. http://www.physorg.com/news177085719.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:50:03 EST news177085719 (AP) -- Powerful scans are letting doctors watch just how the brain changes in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and concussion-like brain injuries - signature damage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. http://www.physorg.com/news177009585.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:40:03 EST news177009585 Depression and other emotional symptoms in survivors of torture and other traumatic experiences may be exacerbated by the effects of head injuries, according to a study from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), based in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Psychiatry. In the November 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers report finding structural changes in the brains of former South Vietnamese political detainees who had suffered head injuries and clearly link those changes to psychiatric symptoms often seen in survivors of torture. http://www.physorg.com/news176734861.html Medicine & Health Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:24:36 EST news176734861 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a study of 1,022 men and women with heart disease, those with post-traumatic stress disorder perceived the effects of their disease as more burdensome and disabling than did those without PTSD, even when their actual heart health was no worse by objective measures. http://www.physorg.com/news176577598.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:10:02 EST news176577598 Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a recent study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa's Department of Psychology. The study, carried out by research student Eti Ganon-Elazar under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, was published in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience. http://www.physorg.com/news176550224.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:01 EST news176550224 (PhysOrg.com) -- A gene variant makes people who experienced trauma as children or adults more susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Yale researchers have found. http://www.physorg.com/news176408321.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:22:58 EST news176408321 Common mental disorders, such as depression and alcohol misuse, are the top psychological problems amongst UK troops post-deployment and not post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as is widely believed. A study published today in the open access journal, BMC Psychiatry, also finds that reservists remain at special risk of operational stress injury. http://www.physorg.com/news176100971.html Medicine & Health Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:30:01 EST news176100971 Researchers have discovered that a primitive region of the brain responsible for sensorimotor control also has an important role in regulating emotional responses to threatening situations. This region appears to work in concert with another structure called the amygdala to regulate social and emotional behavior. http://www.physorg.com/news175348250.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:02 EST news175348250 (PhysOrg.com) -- If people can learn anything from rats, what to eat might be one of the most useful lessons. University of South Florida Professor David Diamond, in the Departments of Psychology, Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, and a career scientist at the Tampa VA Hospital, investigated the effects of a typical American diet, which is high in fat and sugar, compared to an Atkins-type diet, which is high in animal and vegetable fat but low in sugar, on the physiology and behavior of rats. Lesson learned: choosing between the so-called American diet and the Atkins diet can make a difference in managing weight and one`s response to stress. They found that rats fed the American diet exhibited greater anxiety and gained more weight than rats which were fed either the Atkins diet or a control diet, which was low in both fat and sugar. http://www.physorg.com/news175187601.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:30:02 EST news175187601 (AP) -- Standing at the edge of a clear pond in the Idaho mountains on a cold day in early October, former U.S. Marine Angel Gomez made a timid cast with his fly fishing rod. http://www.physorg.com/news175141984.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:33:55 EST news175141984 (AP) -- Female soldiers and others in dangerous roles that once were behind front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan have long complained about how hard it is to prove their combat experience when applying for disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news174734712.html Medicine & Health Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:30:01 EST news174734712 (PhysOrg.com) -- Being in captivity for just a few weeks can reduce the volume of the hippocampus by as much as 23 percent, according to a new Cornell study. http://www.physorg.com/news174565035.html Biology Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:23:53 EST news174565035 The brain is a complex system made of billions of neurons and thousands of connections that relate to every human feeling, including one of the strongest emotions, fear. Most neurological fear studies have been rooted in fear-conditioning experiments. Now, University of Missouri researchers have started using computational models of the brain, making it easier to study the brain's connections. Guoshi Li, an electrical and computer engineering doctoral student, has discovered new evidence on how the brain reacts to fear, including important findings that could help victims of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). http://www.physorg.com/news173551918.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:30:04 EST news173551918 (PhysOrg.com) -- Thousands of men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan sustained life-threatening injuries but were fortunate enough to return home alive. http://www.physorg.com/news172174296.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:50:02 EST news172174296 The Veterans' Administration should expect a high volume of Iraq veterans seeking treatment of post traumatic stress disorder, with researchers anticipating that the rate among armed forces will be as high as 35%, according to the Management Insights feature in the current issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). http://www.physorg.com/news172161302.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:35:31 EST news172161302 According to a recent Washington Post study, approximately 20% of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are psychologically damaged. Among them are a substantial number with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the high rate of suicide among PTSD sufferers has become unacceptable to Army commanders and the soldiers' families. http://www.physorg.com/news171120245.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:25:42 EST news171120245 August 25, 2009 -Researchers working with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have found that post-traumatic stress disorder, the current most common mental disorder among veterans returning from service in the Middle East, is associated with an increased risk for thoughts of suicide. http://www.physorg.com/news170422054.html Medicine & Health Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:28:06 EST news170422054 A new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine may reveal how long-lasting memories form in the brain. http://www.physorg.com/news169223560.html Medicine & Health Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:33:36 EST news169223560 Though discoveries about Alzheimer's disease risk factors are often in the news, adults do not know about the relationship between Alzheimer's disease risk and heart health, nor that physical activity can be protective against dementia, according to new research reported today at the Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD 2009) in Vienna. http://www.physorg.com/news166690799.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:30:01 EST news166690799 Psychological interventions intended to prevent the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the early stages after a traumatic experience have not been shown to be effective, Cochrane Researchers have concluded. This systematic review focused on multiple-session treatments for everyone involved, irrespective of the presence of symptoms. Two previous reviews found single session interventions to be ineffective. http://www.physorg.com/news166252659.html Medicine & Health Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:30:03 EST news166252659 Fear is a powerful emotion and neuroscientists have for the first time located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. Fear conditioning is a form of Pavlovian, or associative, learning and is considered to be a model system for understanding human phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. http://www.physorg.com/news166161392.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:57:22 EST news166161392 Children who live in Afghanistan are particularly affected every day by a multitude of war time stressors which increase the likelihood of developing PTSD: trauma, child labor, and family and military violence. On a daily basis they are first-hand witnesses to the bombings, abuse, and the general upheaval of their home life and society as a result of war, including the effects of long-term poverty and familial turmoil. http://www.physorg.com/news164973652.html Medicine & Health Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:10:01 EST news164973652 New Geisinger-lead research dispels a recent notion in psychiatry that if a person experiences a panic attack during a traumatic event that they will likely suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the future. http://www.physorg.com/news158496530.html Medicine & Health Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:49:24 EST news158496530 Florence, Italy: Preliminary research examining the difference in brain activity between soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and those without it moves scientists a step closer to the possibility of being able one day to use brain scans to help diagnose the condition. http://www.physorg.com/news157964695.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:05:29 EST news157964695 Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have shed light on how the neurotransmitter dopamine helps brain cells process important information. http://www.physorg.com/news157899518.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:59:01 EST news157899518 A receptor for glutamate, the most prominent neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a key role in the process of "unlearning," report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, published in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, could eventually help scientists develop new drug therapies to treat a variety of disorders, including phobias and anxiety disorders, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news157137561.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:21:23 EST news157137561 A new report by psychologists at the University of Leicester warns of the dangers of jurors facing trauma because of their exposure to harrowing and gruesome evidence. http://www.physorg.com/news156681179.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:34:20 EST news156681179 (AP) -- Behind Dan DeRosa's smiling face lurks a dull headache that never goes away. He suffers from memory lapses and hears a shrill ringing in his ears akin to the lingering squeal of a heavy metal concert. http://www.physorg.com/news156664195.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:50:34 EST news156664195