Translational Research Center to Develop New Treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

(July 2004) - In the first major outgrowth of CBN-sponsored research, an interdisciplinary group of eight scientists at Emory, Georgia State University and the Atlanta Veterans Administration Hospital is organizing a translational research center to develop new treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The center’s development is funded by a three-year, $1-million grant from the National Institutes of Heath.

The brain’s fear systems govern responses to psychologically traumatic experiences such as combat, rape, childhood neglect and physical abuse. In a normal brain, a process called fear extinction allows a person to overcome the initial intense anxiety created by these experiences. For reasons not understood, the systems that inhibit fear and return the brain to a normal state do not work properly in PTSD sufferers. Currently, there are no long-term effective treatments for PTSD, a condition that affects an estimated eight percent of the population.

Researchers within the developing translational research center, using animal models and humans, will study the brain’s fear mechanisms and attempt to determine how they malfunction in PTSD sufferers.

Of particular interest will be the role of safety signals. A hallmark of PTSD and many anxiety disorders is the brain’s inability to distinguish between safe and threatening situations. For instance, the brain of a combat-fatigued soldier returning home with PTSD may respond to a car engine backfire in the same fearful way as a gunshot. Center researchers will use brain imaging techniques to compare activity in healthy human volunteers and PTSD sufferers after exposure to safety signals.

In other studies, scientists will condition subjects to fear different stimuli and then assess methods for promoting extinction at various intervals after exposure to the stimuli. Eventually, they plan to assess a number of pharmacological and psychotherapeutic interventions to facilitate fear extinction in PTSD sufferers.
After the initial three-year development grant, the researchers hope the center’s pilot studies will generate an NIH Center grant to support a PTSD research center for the long term.

Fear Collaboratory Head Mike Davis, Ph.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine, who will help develop the center, said much of its groundwork has been laid over the last several years as a result of CBN research on fear conditioning and extinction, safety signals and social defeat, among other studies.

In addition to Davis, members of the developing translational research center include Emory School of Medicine researchers Barbara Rothbaum, Ph.D., Douglas Bremner, M.D., Charles Nemeroff, M.D./Ph.D. and Kerry Ressler, M.D./Ph.D., Emory Psychology Professor Stephan Hamann, Ph.D., Georgia State University Biologist Kim Huhman, Ph.D., and Erica Duncan, M.D., of the Atlanta VA.n