Roy Michael J, Costanzo Michelle E, Jovanovic Tanja, Leaman Suzanne, Taylor Patricia, Norrholm Seth D, Rizzo Albert A
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Department of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2013;191:115-9.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant health concern for U.S. military service members (SMs) returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Early intervention to prevent chronic disability requires greater understanding of subthreshold PTSD symptoms, which are associated with impaired physical health, mental health, and risk for delayed onset PTSD. We report a comparison of physiologic responses for recently deployed SMs with high and low subthreshold PTSD symptoms, respectively, to a fear conditioning task and novel virtual reality paradigm (Virtual Iraq). The high symptom group demonstrated elevated heart rate (HR) response during fear conditioning. Virtual reality sequences evoked significant HR responses which predicted variance of the PTSD Checklist-Military Version self-report. Our results support the value of physiologic assessment during fear conditioning and combat-related virtual reality exposure as complementary tools in detecting subthreshold PTSD symptoms in Veterans.
创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）是从阿富汗和伊拉克归来的美国军人面临的一个重大健康问题。早期干预以预防慢性残疾需要更深入了解阈下PTSD症状，这些症状与身体健康受损、心理健康问题以及创伤后应激障碍延迟发作风险相关。我们报告了分别具有高阈下PTSD症状和低阈下PTSD症状的近期部署军人在恐惧条件反射任务和新型虚拟现实范式（虚拟伊拉克）中的生理反应比较。高症状组在恐惧条件反射期间心率（HR）反应升高。虚拟现实序列引发了显著的HR反应，这些反应预测了《创伤后应激障碍检查表 - 军事版》自我报告的差异。我们的结果支持在恐惧条件反射和与战斗相关的虚拟现实暴露期间进行生理评估，作为检测退伍军人阈下PTSD症状的补充工具的价值。
