The book "Does Stress Damage the Brain? Understanding Trauma-Related Disorders from a Neurological Perspective," outlines the theory that there is a biological basis for trauma-related disorders which can be essential in diagnosing and treating such disorders. This view of trauma spectrum disorders, as Bremner calls them, is a departure from the widely held view in psychiatry that psychiatric disorders are completely different from one another, and have different causes.
The idea of trauma spectrum disorders came out of research conducted by Bremner and colleagues when he was a young psychiatry resident at West Haven, VA Hospital and Yale University Hospital, During an experience in the wee hours of the morning with a Vietnam War combat veteran who was trapped in the middle of a post-traumatic "flashback," Dr. Bremner was struck by the seemingly reflexive and uncontrollable nature of the symptoms, which were similar to those of patients having seizures. Dr. Bremner wondered if the flashbacks represented a neurological rather than a psychological condition, as they were considered to be at that time.
"When patients are having flashbacks, as my veteran was, they are unaware of what is going on in the present," said Dr. Bremner. "Patients often describe flashbacks as if a movie were playing in front of their eyes, complete with visual images, sounds and smells." Dr. Bremner theorized that the flashbacks could involve the same brain areas that are affected by seizures, most importantly the hippocampus, which is aff
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Contact: Kathi Ovnic Baker
kobaker@emory.edu
404-727-9371
Emory University Health Sciences Center
20-Aug-2002