An anti-inflammatory drug could make flashbacks caused by trauma go away.
- The risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) depends on pre-existing patient-specific factors.
- Currently, the management of this disorder essentially involves psychotherapy called “EMDR”.
When a person suffers a trauma, they may subsequently suffer from flashbacks causing them to relive the same event over and over again. To help them get rid of this handicap against which psychotherapies are not always effective, scientists have successfully tested hydrocortisone, an anti-inflammatory drug.
30 milligrams of hydrocortisone
In this new essay conducted at University College London (UCL), 120 participants first watched videos of extreme violence. 60 of them then took 30 milligrams of hydrocortisone, while the others ingested only a simple placebo. Some time later, all the people tested communicated their feelings to the scientists.
The researchers then found that the group who swallowed a hydrocortisone tablet immediately after viewing had less distressing memories of the shocking images than those who received a placebo.
The team also noticed that men and women reacted differently to the drug. A week after watching the violent videos, men with high estrogen levels had less unpleasant memories of them than women.
Flashbacks: “a feature of post-traumatic stress disorder”
“The persistence of distressing and intrusive memories is a major feature of post-traumatic stress disorder,” explains Vanessa Hennessy, director of the study and member of UCL. “The results we present here build on previous studies that have already analyzed the emotions that underlie flashbacks, with the aim of reducing their frequency and intensity, without however completely erasing them from the memory of the traumatized person” , she completes.“Our work also shows how important it is to conduct new experiments with healthy people to determine how hydrocortisone works,” she concludes.
Currently, hydrocortisone is an anti-inflammatory steroid used to treat conditions, such as arthritis.
