PSTD
jhalper | June 13, 2012Blurring, chopping and blocking. Three online items this week all deal with some pretty dynamic phenomena.
The blurring is in our perceptions. It turns out that if you even think you have lost money in an experiment, your ability to distinguish between musical notes will be hampered. What’s the connection? Dr. Rony Paz has been showing that this tendency to lump sounds together is tied to fear. In our evolutionary past, humans may have survived because anything that sounded remotely like a predator aroused an immediate “fight or flight” response. But if mild stress can provoke a similar…
jhalper | February 7, 2011Three news items were posted on our site today. The first is on two papers by a group in Spain. Normally we don't publicize papers that are not written by Institute scientists, but these are a special case. They appear to have clinched the claims of a Weizmann scientist that one can treat stroke and head trauma without trying to get drugs into the brain. The treatment would consist of upping the levels of a naturally-occurring enzyme in the blood; one of these papers showed that levels of this enzyme in the blood tests of stroke patients were the best predictor of their chances of recovery.…
ddobbs | January 14, 2010
This is a pretty big deal if it holds up in future trials. One caveat I've not had time to check out is whether the morphine was often applied as part of an more robust medical response in general, which itself might reduce later PTSD symptoms. I hope the DOD soon follows up with another, larger study, for as Ben Carey notes, the has some substantial implications if indeed it holds up.
via nytimes.com:
In the new study, researchers at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego reviewed detailed medical records of 696 troops who had been wounded in Iraq between 2004 and 2006, determining…