Estimated reading time: 3-4 minutes
PROVO — BYU researchers are testing the use of a drug that may help pre-treat people at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Neuroscience professor Geoff Edwards conducted a study in which he administered drugs to rodents and then exposed them to traumatic situations to see if the drugs reduced their stress levels. The results showed that it is possible to pre-treat PTSD before traumatic memories are formed.
There are medications that can be taken immediately after a traumatic event to alleviate PTSD by softening the strong memories that may form. Edwards’ research is as follows It can block those memories from forming before the experience even happens.
“We’re giving some of the drugs used to reverse PTSD to people we know are at high risk, such as first responders and military personnel, before they experience stress so that they can be used at a cellular level. “We were very interested to see if we could prevent brain dysfunction in the brain, changes that negatively impact PTSD,” Edwards said.
For this study, researchers injected rats with propranolol and mifepristone, drugs commonly used to retrospectively treat PTSD. The rats were then exposed to constant light for two weeks and underwent a traumatic, stress-inducing experience by occasionally introducing a dominant rat into the environment to scare the experimental rats.
After a week, they investigated the rats’ emotions and memory by examining their amygdala and hippocampus. The results were compiled on long-term potentiation, which is “the sustained strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity” in the part of the brain responsible for forming and retrieving memories, the journal said. National Library of Medicine. The greater the amount of long-term potentiation, the stronger the memory, and excessive amounts can exhibit PTSD-like effects.
The researchers found that long-term potentiation increased by 30 to 40 percent in rats exposed to stress without prior drug treatment.
Rats treated with the drug before experiencing stress showed the same level of long-term potentiation as control rats that did not experience any stress.
“The drug brought the brain back to normal levels, restored how the brain should work in memory formation, and removed some of the maladaptive memories that produced overly strong recollections,” Edwards said.
The study also found that pretreated rats had normal stress receptors after experiencing trauma. However, stress receptors in untreated rats had 80% reduced function after trauma.
Eric Winzenried worked on this project while an undergraduate at BYU. He said the project relates to the adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
“These preventive treatment strategies are often much more effective,” says Winzenried. “Although our study is very preliminary in rodents, it is a piece of the puzzle that could lead to better treatments for preventing PTSD in high-risk populations. I look forward to it.”
Further testing in rats needs to be completed before testing in humans can be conducted. Press release from BYU Said.
