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Published in Depression and anxiety
Touch aversion in patients with interpersonal traumatization.
Published in Depression and anxiety
Interpersonal touch is a key aspect of human interaction and a usually very comforting experience. For patients suffering from posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) caused by interpersonal traumatization, such touch is affectively ambiguous. In two studies, we investigated the experience and neural processing of various types of interpersonal and i...
Autonomic responses to fear conditioning among women with PTSD and dissociation.
Published in Depression and anxiety
Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrate alterations in autonomic responses to fear conditioning, such as exaggerated startle and poor fear inhibition. However, there is a paucity of research on fear conditioning among individuals with PTSD and dissociative symptoms, which represents 10-30% of those with PTSD. The current s...
The relation of telomere length at midlife to subsequent 20-year depression trajectories among women.
Published in Depression and anxiety
Telomeres cap and protect DNA but shorten with each somatic cell division. Aging and environmental and lifestyle factors contribute to the speed of telomere attrition. Current evidence suggests a link between relative telomere length (RTL) and depression but the directionality of the relationship remains unclear. We prospectively examined associati...
Differentiating PTSD from anxiety and depression: Lessons from the ICD-11 PTSD diagnostic criteria.
...Published in Depression and anxiety
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is frequently associated with depression and anxiety, but the nature of the relationship is unclear. By removing mood and anxiety diagnostic criteria, the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) aims to delineate a distinct PTSD phenotype. We examined the effect of implementing ICD-...
A comparison of DSM-5 and DSM-IV agoraphobia in the World Mental Health Surveys.
...Published in Depression and anxiety
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5 (DSM-5) definition of agoraphobia (AG) as an independent diagnostic entity makes it timely to re-examine the epidemiology of AG. Study objective was to present representative data on the characteristics of individuals who meet DSM-IV criteria for AG (AG without a history of panic ...
Prospective associations of perceived unit cohesion with postdeployment mental health outcomes.
...Published in Depression and anxiety
Prior investigations have found negative associations between military unit cohesion and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, most relied on cross-sectional data and few examined relationships of unit cohesion to other mental disorders. This study evaluates prospective associations of perceived unit cohesion with a range of mental health ...
Cortisol awakening response and additive serotonergic genetic risk interactively predict depression in two samples: The ...
Published in Depression and anxiety
The serotonin system and hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis are each implicated in the pathway to depression; human and animal research support these systems' cross-talk. Our work implicates a 5-variant additive serotoninergic multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) and separately the cortisol awakening response (CAR) in the prospective pred...
Explaining the association between anxiety disorders and alcohol use disorder: A twin study.
Published in Depression and anxiety
It is unknown whether social anxiety disorder (SAD) has a unique association with alcohol use disorder (AUD) over and beyond that of other anxiety disorders, how the associations develop over time, and whether the associations are likely to be causal. Diagnoses of AUD, SAD, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and specific pho...
Transition to suicide attempt from recent suicide ideation in U.S. Army soldiers: Results from the Army Study to Assess ...
...Published in Depression and anxiety
Most people with suicide ideation (SI) do not attempt suicide (SA). Understanding the transition from current/recent SI to SA is important for mental health care. Our objective was to identify characteristics that differentiate SA from 30-day SI among representative U.S. Army soldiers. Using a unique case-control design, soldiers recently hospitali...
