A Disruptive Treatment Promises New Hope to PTSD Patients: Will Physicians Be Willing to Use It?  

Millions of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — from veterans to rape survivors — have new hope because of a watershed study showing that the injection of an anesthetic to a bundle of nerves in the neck can relieve their symptoms in a clinically significant way. The treatment is known as the stellate ganglion block, or SGB. Used since 1925 for problems such as pain in the arm and shingles, it is safe and effective. In the newly released, eight-week, U.S. Army-funded clinical trial of 108 active-duty service members with PTSD, the nonprofit research institute RTI International found that patients’ scores on the PTSD Checklist, used to diagnose PTSD and determine its severity, improved by an average of 12.6 points, with 10 points being clinically significant. The results were just published in JAMA Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Medical Association.  So how does an injection of an anesthetic produce changes in the brain that last for years?  When someone suffers trauma, the brain produces more of a substance called nerve growth factor (NGF), which promotes new sympathetic nerve growth. Sympathetic nerves mobilize the body’s resources under stress. The new nerve growth, in turn, leads to the production of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. When someone has too much norepinephrine, it makes them hyper-vigilant.  When the SGB injection anesthetizes the bundle of nerves in the neck called the stellate ganglion, thi...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Personal PTSD Research Treatment Hyper Vigilance Neuroscience Neurotransmitter Norepinephrine Posttraumatic Stress Disorder pruning Source Type: blogs