NCT01507948

Brain Imaging of Psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

The Neurobiology of Psychotherapy: Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in PTSD

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 94 (actual)
• Sponsor: Stanford University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The investigators are seeking people who have been exposed to a traumatic event in the past and have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) currently. A person with PTSD may feel significant distress when reminded of a traumatic event or feel depressed, anxious or jumpy. As a part of this study, participants will receive brain MRIs and office assessments before and after psychotherapy. The investigators provide the gold-standard psychotherapy for PTSD, "Prolonged Exposure", free of charge; additionally participants are compensated for their time during assessment procedures. This study is exploring the brain circuitry involved in improvement in response to psychotherapy.

Conditions

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Prolonged exposure	PE will be delivered in 9-12 90-minute sessions. Therapy will be delivered by PhD-level therapists at Stanford and Palo Alto VA. PE consists of four components: psychoeducation about PTSD symptoms and the behavioral or cognitive factors maintaining it, a brief breathing retraining that can be used as a stress management tool, prolonged imaginal exposure to the trauma memory both within-session and repeated as homework, and prolonged in vivo exposure to avoided scenarios in patients' day-to-day lives.

Timeline

• Start date: 2010-09-01
• Primary completion: 2016-01-01
• Completion: 2016-01-01
• First posted: 2012-01-11
• Last updated: 2017-01-23

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: United States