Psychophysiology in the Study of Psychological Trauma: Where Are We Now and Where Do We Need to Be?

Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major public health concern, which has been seeing increased recent attention partly due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Historically, research attempting to understand the etiology and treatment of PTSD has made frequent use of psychophysiological measures of arousal as they provide a number of advantages in providing objective, non-self-report outcomes that are closely related to proposed neurobiological mechanisms and provide opportunity for cross-species translation. Further, the ongoing shift in classification of psychiatric illness based on symptom clusters to specific biological, physiological, and behavioral constructs, as outlined in the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria project (RDoC), promises that psychophysiological research will continue to play a prominent role in research on trauma-related illnesses. This review focuses on the current state of the knowledge regarding psychophysiological measures and PTSD with a focus on physiological markers associated with current PTSD symptoms, as well as markers of constructs thought to be relevant to PTSD symptomatology (safety signal learning, fear extinction), and psychophysiological markers of risk for developing PTSD following trauma. Future directions and issues for the psychophysiological study of trauma including traumatic brain injury (TBI), treatment outcome studies, and new wearable physiological monitoring technologies are also discussed.

Overexpression of Forebrain CRH During Early Life Increases Trauma Susceptibility in Adulthood

“…These data indicate that the predator stress model may be most consistent in modeling the avoidance-like components of PTSD rather than full PTSD-syndrome. It is important to consider that reports of increased baseline startle, reduced habituation, and PPI are inconsistent in PTSD patients (Acheson et al, 2014). Indeed, PTSD is more robustly associated with increased startle reactivity in response to specific threat, not under baseline conditions as was assessed here (Grillon and Baas, 2003;Orr et al, 2002;Acheson et al, 2014).…”

Startle habituation, sensory, and sensorimotor gating in trauma-affected refugees with posttraumatic stress disorder

“…Diminished habituation has also been reported in a subgroup of patients with schizophrenia (Williams et al ., 2013), and as proposed by Acheson et al (2012), this abnormality may even characterize a specific phenotype across psychiatric disorders. The finding that this diminished habituation only reached trend level of significance in the patients indicates a certain degree of heterogeneity in our patient group.…”

Sex differences in traumatic stress reactivity of rats with a history of alcohol drinking

“…The startle response is an operational measure of threat anticipation linked to fear circuit activation in humans and animals [47,48]. Although alterations in arousal or reactivity are commonly reported in humans with PTSD [1], empirical evidence for exaggerated startle response is mixed [49,50]. A meta-analysis that compared adults with and without PTSD indicated only modest increases in baseline startle reactivity in PTSD patients [51].…”