Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Brain Injuries and P.T.S.D. 12/25/07

Several articles have cropped up declaring that brain injuries "cure" Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In reading through them, I found that what they meant to say is that brain injuries demonstrated in either of two specific areas of the brains of research subjects lessen the incidence of P.T.S.D. The two areas are the amygdala and the vmPFC or the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The research results reported are actually fairly impressive. Folks with insults to the amygdala had zero incidence of P.T.S.D. And only 18% of folks with insults to the vmPFC developed P.T.S.D.

No one is planning to go out and deliberately inflict brain injuries upon those with P.T.S.D. The idea of surgery to insert clips to dull activity in one or both areas is rather uninviting. Use of magnetic stuff is more palatable but also more suspect as junk science.

Nothing reported over on Medscape yet so it is too early for me to get excited.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122300601.html


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071224124639.htm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Brain_injury_may_be_a_cure_for_PTSD/
articleshow/2647593.cms

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/24/medicalresearch.neuroscience

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