Andi
01-20-06, 09:50 AM
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, CP
SUPPOSE, as in a recent movie, your brain could be wiped clean of sad and traumatic thoughts.
That's science fiction but real-world scientists are working on the next best thing -- a pill that might make traumatic memories of events such as rape less intense.
Psychiatrist Hilary Klein could have offered it to the man she treated at a St. Louis shelter last year. He had fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and was so distraught over not knowing where his sisters were that others had to tell Klein his story.
"This man could not even give his name, he was in such distress. All he could do was cry," she said.
Such people often develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Only 14%-24% of trauma victims experience long-term PTSD but sufferers have flashbacks and physical symptoms that make them feel as if they are reliving the trauma years after it occurred.
Scientists believe the brain goes haywire during and right after a strongly emotional event, pouring out stress hormones that help store memories in a way that keeps them fresh.
Taking a drug to tamp down these chemicals might blunt memory formation and prevent PTSD, they theorize.
Some doctors have a more ambitious goal: Trying to cure PTSD. They are deliberately triggering very old bad memories and then giving the pill to deep-six them.
The first study to test this approach on 19 long-time PTSD sufferers has provided early encouraging results, Canadian and Harvard University researchers report.
"We figure we need to test about 10 more people until we've got solid evidence." said Alain Brunet, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal who is leading the study.
Memories, painful or sweet, don't form instantly but congeal over time. Like slowly hardening concrete, there is a window of opportunity when a memory can be shaped.
During stress, the body pours out adrenaline and other "fight or flight" hormones that help to write memories into the "hard drive" of the brain, experiments by James McGaugh and Larry Cahill showed.
STAGE FRIGHT
Propranolol can blunt this. It's in a class of drugs called beta blockers and is the one most able to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where stress hormones are wreaking havoc. It already is widely used to treat high blood pressure and is being tested for stage fright.
One study on assault and accident victims in France confirmed that propranolol might prevent PTSD symptoms.
To try to make it decay, researchers ask people to describe the trauma as vividly as they can, bringing on physical symptoms like racing hearts, then give them propranolol to blunt "restorage" of the memory. As much as three months later, the single dose appears to be preventing PTSD symptoms.
Some critics suggest that rape victims would be less able to testify against attackers if their memories were blunted, or at least that defence attorneys would argue that.
Klein, the Saint Louis University psychiatrist, said it would be great to have something besides sleep aids, anti-depressants and counselling to offer traumatized people but she remains skeptical about the long-term good of propranolol.
"If there were a pill to reduce the intensity of symptoms, that would be a relief," she said. "But that's a far step from being able to prevent the development of PTSD."
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/Health/2006/01/17/pf-1397631.html
SUPPOSE, as in a recent movie, your brain could be wiped clean of sad and traumatic thoughts.
That's science fiction but real-world scientists are working on the next best thing -- a pill that might make traumatic memories of events such as rape less intense.
Psychiatrist Hilary Klein could have offered it to the man she treated at a St. Louis shelter last year. He had fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and was so distraught over not knowing where his sisters were that others had to tell Klein his story.
"This man could not even give his name, he was in such distress. All he could do was cry," she said.
Such people often develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Only 14%-24% of trauma victims experience long-term PTSD but sufferers have flashbacks and physical symptoms that make them feel as if they are reliving the trauma years after it occurred.
Scientists believe the brain goes haywire during and right after a strongly emotional event, pouring out stress hormones that help store memories in a way that keeps them fresh.
Taking a drug to tamp down these chemicals might blunt memory formation and prevent PTSD, they theorize.
Some doctors have a more ambitious goal: Trying to cure PTSD. They are deliberately triggering very old bad memories and then giving the pill to deep-six them.
The first study to test this approach on 19 long-time PTSD sufferers has provided early encouraging results, Canadian and Harvard University researchers report.
"We figure we need to test about 10 more people until we've got solid evidence." said Alain Brunet, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal who is leading the study.
Memories, painful or sweet, don't form instantly but congeal over time. Like slowly hardening concrete, there is a window of opportunity when a memory can be shaped.
During stress, the body pours out adrenaline and other "fight or flight" hormones that help to write memories into the "hard drive" of the brain, experiments by James McGaugh and Larry Cahill showed.
STAGE FRIGHT
Propranolol can blunt this. It's in a class of drugs called beta blockers and is the one most able to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where stress hormones are wreaking havoc. It already is widely used to treat high blood pressure and is being tested for stage fright.
One study on assault and accident victims in France confirmed that propranolol might prevent PTSD symptoms.
To try to make it decay, researchers ask people to describe the trauma as vividly as they can, bringing on physical symptoms like racing hearts, then give them propranolol to blunt "restorage" of the memory. As much as three months later, the single dose appears to be preventing PTSD symptoms.
Some critics suggest that rape victims would be less able to testify against attackers if their memories were blunted, or at least that defence attorneys would argue that.
Klein, the Saint Louis University psychiatrist, said it would be great to have something besides sleep aids, anti-depressants and counselling to offer traumatized people but she remains skeptical about the long-term good of propranolol.
"If there were a pill to reduce the intensity of symptoms, that would be a relief," she said. "But that's a far step from being able to prevent the development of PTSD."
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/Health/2006/01/17/pf-1397631.html