Biological Correlates of Traumatic Stress

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is an application for a Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research (K24) for J. Douglas Bremner, M.D., to enhance his research career and to allow him to provide mentoring to junior investigators in the area of biological correlates of traumatic stress. Studies by the applicant have applied brain imaging to the study of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show smaller hippocampal volume in PTSD, and positron emission tomography (PET) to show alterations in a neural circuit involving medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala in PTSD. Other studies by the applicant applied animal findings showing that serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) promote neurogenesis (which is inhibited by stress) to show that SSRIs result in a 5% increase in hippocampal volume and 30% improvement in hippocampal-based declarative memory function. Current studies are using fMRI to study neural correlates of a word list learning paradigm and recall of traumatic memories with a history of early abuse. The applicant has been very productive in performing research and in recent years has had an increase in the number of senior author publications; he now would like to change focus and spend more time mentoring junior faculty and trainees. The Training Program in Neuroimaging Sciences (TPINS), Graduate Program in Neuroscience at Emory, and other resources, including the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, and Yerkes Regional Primate Center, represent excellent opportunities for research and the development of trainees. There is a collegial and collaborative atmosphere at Emory that creates as excellent experience for trainees. Emory University has the highest proportion of minority students and faculty of any of the top 25 universities in the US, offering an excellent opportunity for training in an area particularly relevant for minorities. The mentoring provided by the applicant will provide an important new crop of investigators to conduct the next generation of research in the field of biological correlates of traumatic stress.