Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) and Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders (TRACTS), VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2017 Sep;26(3). doi: 10.1002/mpr.1556. Epub 2017 Feb 17.
Many US veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq have multiple physical and psychiatric problems. A major focus of research has been on determining the effects of mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI), but mTBI is rarely diagnosed in the absence of co-occurring conditions such as blast exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, substance abuse, etc. These potentially interactive psychological and physical conditions produce complex patterns of cognitive, psychological, and physical symptoms that impede civilian reintegration and complicate efficient and effective treatment planning. The Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders (TRACTS) has developed a multidisciplinary approach to the assessment of deployment trauma and its consequences in veterans of these wars. The prospective TRACTS longitudinal cohort study conducts state-of-the-art assessments in the domains of biomedical function, lifetime head trauma, psychological function encompassing deployment experience and lifetime exposure to traumatic events, neuropsychological function, and structural and functional neuroimaging. The TRACTS longitudinal cohort study is the first of its kind to comprehensively evaluate lifetime incidence of TBI and PTSD in these veterans, in addition to those incurred during military deployment. The protocol has begun to reveal information that will help improve understanding of the complex pathophysiology associated with co-occurring mTBI and related stress disorders.
许多美国阿富汗和伊拉克的退伍军人都有多种身体和精神问题。研究的一个主要重点是确定轻度创伤性脑损伤 (mTBI) 的影响，但如果没有爆炸暴露、创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD)、抑郁、药物滥用等共同发生的情况，mTBI 很少被诊断出来。这些潜在的相互作用的心理和身体状况会产生复杂的认知、心理和身体症状模式，阻碍平民重新融入社会，并使有效的治疗计划变得复杂。创伤性脑损伤和应激障碍转化研究中心 (TRACTS) 已经开发出一种多学科的方法来评估这些战争中退伍军人的部署创伤及其后果。前瞻性 TRACTS 纵向队列研究在生物医学功能、终身头部创伤、心理功能（包括部署经历和终身暴露于创伤性事件）、神经心理学功能以及结构和功能神经影像学等领域进行了最先进的评估。TRACTS 纵向队列研究是同类研究中首次全面评估这些退伍军人的终生创伤性脑损伤和创伤后应激障碍的发生率，包括在军事部署期间发生的创伤性脑损伤和创伤后应激障碍的发生率。该方案已经开始揭示有助于提高对与共同发生的 mTBI 和相关应激障碍相关的复杂病理生理学的理解的信息。
