PTSD News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Cyberbullying in Any Form Can Be Traumatizing for Kids

May 15, 2025 — New research shows that cyberbullying should be classified as an adverse childhood experience due to its strong link to trauma. Even subtle forms -- like exclusion from group chats -- can trigger PTSD-level distress. Nearly 90% of teens experienced ...

PTSD Patients Show Long-Term Benefits With Vagus Nerve Stimulation

May 5, 2025 — In a recent clinical study, patients with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder were symptom-free up to six months after completing traditional therapy paired with vagus nerve ...

Study Links Childhood Trauma to Increased Substance Use and Unexpected Effects on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure in Adolescents

Apr. 30, 2025 — Childhood trauma significantly increases the likelihood of engaging in harmful alcohol consumption, smoking and illicit drug use, by the age of ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new study suggests that climate trauma -- such as experiencing a devastating wildfire -- can have lasting effects on cognitive ...

Police Officers Face Twice the Risk of Traumatic Brain Injuries and PTSD, Survey Finds

Apr. 11, 2025 — Police officers are more than twice as likely to have traumatic brain injuries compared to the general ...

Even Under Stress, Male-Female Pairs Had Each Other's Backs

Apr. 8, 2025 — When faced with a potential threat, mice often freeze in place. Moreover, when two animals are together, they typically freeze at the same time, matching each other's periods of immobility. In a new study, researchers found that coordination during ...

PTSD Can Undermine Healthy Couple Communication When People Fear Their Emotions

Mar. 31, 2025 — Fear of emotions among couples with PTSD is associated with unproductive communication, according to a new ...

Study Finds Unique Brain Changes Linked to Witnessing Trauma

Mar. 18, 2025 — Researchers discovered distinct molecular differences in how the brain processes directly experienced versus witnessed trauma -- a finding that could lead to more targeted treatments for ...

Why Some Are More Susceptible to Developing PTSD Symptoms Than Others

Mar. 5, 2025 — People with a more active amygdala (an area in the brain involved in processing information relevant to threats) are more likely to develop PTSD symptoms after experiencing trauma than people with a calmer ...

Don't Let This Stress You out

Mar. 3, 2025 — Having one traumatic experience is bad enough. If you've constantly experienced stress since before birth, you may be in for an especially tough time. Our emotions may be influenced by infections experienced in the mother's womb. This can result ...

Research Indicates Effects of PTSD on Body Vary by Culture

Feb. 28, 2025 — Anthropologists, social scientists and veterans are analyze the relationship between the hormones cortisol and testosterone and PTSD in a non-industrialized ...

Nasal Spray Shows Preclinical Promise for Treating Traumatic Brain Injury

Feb. 27, 2025 — A new study suggests a nasal spray developed to target neuroinflammation could one day be an effective treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI). By studying the effects of the nasal anti-CD3 in a mouse model of TBI, researchers found the spray ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:12pm EDT

Cracking the Alzheimer's Code: How Brain Trauma Triggers Disease

Feb. 12, 2025 — A study reveals that traumatic brain injury alters the small vessels in the brain, resulting in an accumulation of amyloid beta -- a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The findings suggest that ...

App Helps Alleviate Mental Health Symptoms in Bereaved Parents

Dec. 18, 2024 — A new study shows that an app can help parents who are mourning the loss of a child. Parents who used the app for three months reported reduced symptoms of prolonged grief and post-traumatic stress, ...

For Those With CTE, Family History of Mental Illness Tied to Aggression in Middle Age

Nov. 27, 2024 — People who have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) who have a family history of mental illness may have a higher risk of aggression in middle ...

Stress Makes Mice's Memories Less Specific

Nov. 15, 2024 — Stress is a double-edged sword when it comes to memory: stressful or otherwise emotional events are usually more memorable, but stress can also make it harder for us to retrieve memories. Now, ...

How Stress Is Fundamentally Changing Our Memories

Nov. 15, 2024 — In a new study, researchers identify the biological processes behind stress-induced aversive memory generalization and highlight an intervention which could help restore appropriate memory ...

PTSD Patients Can Benefit Just as Much from Intensive Outpatient Programs as from Inpatient Clinics, New Study Shows

Nov. 14, 2024 — Post-traumatic stress disorder comes in many forms and affects each person differently. Some patients benefit more from residential, in-treatment ...

New Research Identifies Key Mental Health Risk Factors for Children After Trauma

Oct. 10, 2024 — A new study has shed light on why some children and adolescents develop mental health disorders like PTSD, anxiety, or depression after experiencing ...

Fearful Memories of Others Seen in Mouse Brain

Oct. 16, 2024 — Researchers have revealed that the CA1 and CA2 regions in the brain respectively encode the locations and individuals linked with a threatening experience. The results show that, beyond simply ...

Evidence Builds for Near Infrared Light Treatment in Traumatic Brain Injury

Oct. 11, 2024 — New research indicates that a novel method could result in a new treatment option in an area of medicine that currently has few, if any, treatment ...

Common Brain Network Detected Among Veterans With Traumatic Brain Injury Could Protect Against PTSD

Sep. 24, 2024 — Researchers analyzed 193 patients from the Vietnam Head Injury Study with penetrating traumatic brain injury to determine if the location of shrapnel ...

Social Media Posts May Provide Early Warning of PTSD Problems

Sep. 23, 2024 — Scientists have analyzed millions of tweets to identify COVID-19 survivors living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- demonstrating the effectiveness of using social media data as a tool ...

PTSD Symptoms Can Be Reduced Through Treatment Including a Video Game

Sep. 20, 2024 — A single treatment session, which includes the video game Tetris, can reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This has been shown in a new study carried out with healthcare ...

Improving Eye Tracking to Assess Brain Disorders

Sep. 16, 2024 — Using piezoelectricity, an engineering team developed wearable sensors to examine eye movement to assess brain disorders or damage to the ...

Delayed Feedback Enhances Learning Performance in Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury, Study Indicates

Sep. 10, 2024 — Researchers have published a novel study exploring the effects of delayed feedback on learning in individuals with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury. The goal of this study was to assess the ...

People Experiencing Relatively Mild Cases of Mental Ill-Health May Be Perceived Differently by Others Depending on Whether or Not Diagnostic Labels Are Provided

Aug. 28, 2024 — Diagnostic labels for people experiencing what some consider to be relatively milder forms of mental-ill health may affect how others perceive them for better and worse, according to a new ...

Nurses Play Key Role in Addressing Mental Well-Being for People After a Stroke

Aug. 19, 2024 — The latest research indicates that 16% to 85% of people recovering from a stroke experience at least one psychosocial symptom, including depression, anxiety, stress, fatigue and/or decreased quality ...

Sleep Resets Neurons for New Memories the Next Day

Aug. 15, 2024 — While everyone knows that a good night's sleep restores energy, a new study finds it resets another vital function: ...

Child-Parent Therapy Has Biological Benefits for Traumatized Kids

Aug. 14, 2024 — Psychotherapy sessions with caregivers may help prevent serious disease later in life for young children who have experienced significant trauma, a new study ...

Processing Traumatic Memories During Sleep Leads to Changes in the Brain Associated With Improvement in PTSD Symptoms

Aug. 7, 2024 — Currently, the first-choice treatment for PTSD is exposure-based psychotherapy, where therapists help rewire the emotions associated with the traumatic memory in the patient's brain, shifting ...

Stroke Recovery: It's in the Genes

July 24, 2024 — New research has found that specific genes may be related to the trajectory of recovery for stroke survivors, providing doctors insights useful for developing targeted ...

Can Doomscrolling Trigger an Existential Crisis?

July 18, 2024 — In a new study on the impact of doomscrolling from an existential perspective, researchers warn that habitual checking of disturbing stories on social media is linked with changes to how we view ...

Brain's 'Escape Switch' Controlled by Threat Sensitivity Dial

June 26, 2024 — Neuroscientists have discovered how the brain bidirectionally controls sensitivity to threats to initiate and complete escape behaviour in mice. These findings could help unlock new directions for ...

Confronting Trauma Alleviates Chronic Pain Among Older Veterans

June 13, 2024 — A new study found chronic pain among older adults could be significantly reduced through a newly developed psychotherapy that works by confronting past trauma and stress-related emotions that can ...

Do Traumatic Life Experiences Impact Perception of Distressing Imagery?

June 11, 2024 — Researchers have examined viewer responses to images of distressing and neutrally decorated masks and whether personal life history, particularly past experiences of trauma and difficulty, affected ...

Veterans With Service Dogs Have Fewer PTSD Symptoms, Higher Quality of Life

June 4, 2024 — Veterans who were paired with a service dog for just three months were 66% less likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress ...

Researchers Unveil Shared and Unique Brain Molecular Dysregulations in PTSD and Depression

May 23, 2024 — Researchers analyzed multi-omic data from 231 people with PTSD or depression to uncover distinct molecular differences that might affect systems such as the nervous and immune systems, to contribute ...

Exercise Spurs Neuron Growth and Rewires the Brain, Helping Mice Forget Traumatic and Addictive Memories

May 20, 2024 — Researchers have found that increased neuron formation and the subsequent rewiring of neural circuits in the hippocampus through exercise or genetic manipulation helps mice forget traumatic or ...

Study Shows Heightened Sensitivity to PTSD in Autism

May 9, 2024 — A new study shows that a mild stress is enough to trigger post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Researchers demonstrated that the two disorders ...

Scientists Uncover 95 Regions of the Genome Linked to PTSD

Apr. 18, 2024 — In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), intrusive thoughts, changes in mood, and other symptoms after exposure to trauma can greatly impact a person's quality of life. About 6 percent of people ...

Study Finds Increased Anxiety and PTSD Among People Who Remained in Ukraine

Apr. 11, 2024 — Researchers conducted a survey to understand how the mental health of displaced Ukrainians has been affected by the ongoing war. Their findings describe high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder ...