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New research is helping scientists understand why frightening,
traumatic memories go so deep and linger so long in the human brain.
A study in rats shows that a powerful neurochemical called
norepinephrine is released to help the brain deal with trauma -- but it
also "imprints" an emotional fear tagged to the memory of that event.
These emotionally loaded memories could help cause post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), said a team at Harvard University. But the
findings may also provide a target for treatment, they added.
"Norepinephrine is released in a part of the brain called the
amygdala, which is associated with emotional conditions, particularly
in bad situations," said lead researcher Vadim Bolshakov, director of
the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at Harvard-affiliated McLean
Hospital, in Belmont, Mass.
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More Gulf Coast residents are thinking seriously about suicide or
showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as the recovery from
Hurricane Katrina inches along, a new survey finds.
The
survey is a follow-up to one done six months after the hurricane, which
found that few people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — about 3
percent — had contemplated suicide in the storm's aftermath.
That figure has now doubled in the three-state area and is up to 8 percent in the New Orleans area, according to Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School, lead researcher for the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group.
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Americans seem to like psychotherapy. Whether it’s for the mundane conflicts of everyday life or life-threatening illnesses like major depression, psychotherapy is widely viewed as a healthy, if not harmless, pursuit.
Yet unlike most other medical treatments, psychotherapy can take considerable time. An infection can be cured in days, but remission of severe depression or anxiety disorder usually takes weeks or months, and a personality disorder typically requires years of intensive psychotherapy.
So if the outcome may be months or years away, how can a person tell whether his psychotherapy is any good?
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Women who force themselves to stay quiet during marital arguments appear to have a higher risk of death, a new study shows. Depression and irritable bowel syndrome are also more common in these women.
Such "self-silencing" during conflict may have provided an evolutionary survival advantage long ago, and unfortunately may be a necessity for women in abusive relationships, Dr. Elaine D. Eaker of Eaker Epidemiology Enterprises in Gaithersburg, Maryland, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.
Eaker and her colleagues found that, over a 10-year period, the most striking finding was that women who self-silenced were four times more likely to die than women who expressed themselves freely during marital arguments.
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At least one major symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
was reported by about 20 percent of 1,114 women in the U.S. Air Force
deployed during the Iraq War, says a University of Michigan study that
found a link between PTSD and work-family conflict.
The women in the survey (74.2 percent enlisted, 25.8 percent
officers) were deployed at least once since March 19, 2003. About 62
percent of them were deployed in a theater of war.
The study authors found that women who experienced higher levels of
family-work conflict were more likely to have symptoms of anxiety and
depression. They were also less likely to feel they could cope with
daily demands and responsibilities.
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