Publications by authors named "Brian O'Neil"

Background: Chronic pain following traumatic stress exposure (TSE) is common. Increasing evidence suggests inflammatory/immune mechanisms are induced by TSE, play a key role in the recovery process versus development of post-TSE chronic pain, and are sex specific. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP) is associated with chronic pain after TSE in a sex-specific manner.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how early social support after trauma affects PTSD symptoms over time and explores specific brain regions involved in this process, such as the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
  • Using data from 315 participants in the AURORA study, researchers measured PTSD symptoms and perceived emotional support at multiple time points, while also conducting neuroimaging two weeks post-trauma.
  • The results show that early emotional support is linked to changes in white matter connectivity between key brain areas, but it also highlighted unexpected increased threat reactivity in the default mode network, suggesting complex neural pathways in response to social threats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study explored the use of wrist-wearable devices to track heart rate variability (HRV) as potential biomarkers for recovery from adverse neuropsychiatric effects following traumatic events, specifically in a socioeconomically disadvantaged group.
  • - Researchers monitored participants within 72 hours of a traumatic event and over a course of 6 months, validating HRV characteristics linked to various posttraumatic symptoms, such as pain, re-experiencing, and anxiety.
  • - The findings indicate that changes in HRV could effectively predict improvements or worsening in symptoms, suggesting that these wearable technologies could serve as useful screening tools for identifying posttraumatic stress in high-risk populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates sex/gender differences in PTSD by examining 16 risk factors and their impact on PTSD severity in a group of 2,924 acutely traumatized individuals.
  • - It finds that six risk factors are more prevalent in women, while none are more pronounced in men, highlighting unique pathways contributing to PTSD severity based on sex assigned at birth.
  • - The results indicate different risk mechanisms for men and women, suggesting that understanding these differences can help develop targeted mental health interventions and inform future research on other mental disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Trauma can increase the risk of unhealthy alcohol use, and this study investigates how brain reward systems change after trauma exposure in humans.
  • The research involved 286 participants who were assessed for changes in alcohol use and brain activity through fMRI shortly after experiencing trauma.
  • Findings suggest that heightened brain activity in specific regions (like the VTA) and altered connections between brain areas may lead to increased alcohol consumption following traumatic events, indicating potential targets for early intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Importance: Research on resilience after trauma has often focused on individual-level factors (eg, ability to cope with adversity) and overlooked influential neighborhood-level factors that may help mitigate the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Objective: To investigate whether an interaction between residential greenspace and self-reported individual resources was associated with a resilient PTSD trajectory (ie, low/no symptoms) and to test if the association between greenspace and PTSD trajectory was mediated by neural reactivity to reward.

Design, Setting, And Participants: As part of a longitudinal cohort study, trauma survivors were recruited from emergency departments across the US.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Cardiac arrest is a common and devastating emergency of both the heart and brain. More than 380,000 patients suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest annually in the USA. Induced cooling of comatose patients markedly improved neurological and functional outcomes in pivotal randomized clinical trials, but the optimal duration of therapeutic hypothermia has not yet been established.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Cardiac arrest is a common and devastating emergency of both the heart and brain. More than 380,000 patients suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest annually in the United States. Induced cooling of comatose patients markedly improved neurological and functional outcomes in pivotal randomized clinical trials, but the optimal duration of therapeutic hypothermia has not yet been established.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The neurocardiac circuit is integral to physiological regulation of threat and trauma-related responses. However, few direct investigations of brain-behavior associations with replicable physiological markers of PTSD have been conducted. The current study probed the neurocardiac circuit by examining associations among its core regions in the brain (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Knowledge of sex differences in risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can contribute to the development of refined preventive interventions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine if women and men differ in their vulnerability to risk factors for PTSD.

Methods: As part of the longitudinal AURORA study, 2924 patients seeking emergency department (ED) treatment in the acute aftermath of trauma provided self-report assessments of pre- peri- and post-traumatic risk factors, as well as 3-month PTSD severity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use (tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis) are highly comorbid. Many factors affect this relationship, including sociodemographic and psychosocial characteristics, other prior traumas, and physical health. However, few prior studies have investigated this prospectively, examining new substance use and the extent to which a wide range of factors may modify the relationship to PTSD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Females are more likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than males. Impaired inhibition has been identified as a mechanism for PTSD development, but studies on potential sex differences in this neurobiological mechanism and how it relates to PTSD severity and progression are relatively rare. Here, we examined sex differences in neural activation during response inhibition and PTSD following recent trauma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study examines the association between brain dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) and current/future posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptom severity, and the impact of sex on this relationship. By analyzing 275 participants' dFNC data obtained ~2 weeks after trauma exposure, we noted that brain dynamics of an inter-network brain state link negatively with current (r=-0.179, = 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Brain injury is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest. Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to brain injury following cardiac arrest; therefore, therapies that limit mitochondrial dysfunction have the potential to improve neurological outcomes. Generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during ischemia-reperfusion injury in the brain is a critical component of mitochondrial injury and is dependent on hyperactivation of mitochondria following resuscitation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Patients exposed to trauma often experience high rates of adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae (APNS). The biological mechanisms promoting APNS are currently unknown, but the microbiota-gut-brain axis offers an avenue to understanding mechanisms as well as possibilities for intervention. Microbiome composition after trauma exposure has been poorly examined regarding neuropsychiatric outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Childhood trauma is a known risk factor for trauma and stress-related disorders in adulthood. However, limited research has investigated the impact of childhood trauma on brain structure linked to later posttraumatic dysfunction. We investigated the effect of childhood trauma on white matter microstructure after recent trauma and its relationship with future posttraumatic dysfunction among trauma-exposed adult participants (n = 202) recruited from emergency departments as part of the AURORA Study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To determine whether out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) post-resuscitation management and outcomes differ between four Detroit hospitals.

Introduction: Significant variation exists in treatment/outcomes from OHCA. Disparities between hospitals serving a similar population is not well known.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Importance: Adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae after traumatic stress exposure are common and have higher incidence among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Pain, depression, avoidance of trauma reminders, reexperiencing trauma, anxiety, hyperarousal, sleep disruption, and nightmares have been reported. Wrist-wearable devices with accelerometers capable of assessing 24-hour rest-activity characteristics are prevalent and may have utility in measuring these outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to create and validate a quick bedside tool that helps identify patients at high risk for long-term posttraumatic stress symptoms following a car accident.
  • Researchers collected data from over 1,500 adults who had been treated in emergency departments after such trauma, ultimately focusing on an 8-question tool that assesses various risk factors.
  • The tool showed good effectiveness in predicting significant posttraumatic stress symptoms, but further research and validation are needed to enhance its accuracy and usefulness in public health interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anxiety sensitivity, or fear of anxious arousal, is cross-sectionally associated with a wide array of adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, pain, and somatization. The current study utilizes a large-scale, multi-site, prospective study of trauma survivors presenting to emergency departments. Hypotheses tested whether elevated anxiety sensitivity in the immediate posttrauma period is associated with more severe and persistent trajectories of common adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae in the eight weeks posttrauma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to determine if short-term opioid prescriptions for acute pain in emergency departments (ED) lead to future at-risk opioid use, particularly after traumatic events.
  • Researchers analyzed data from a cohort of adult patients in 29 urban EDs, excluding those with prior non-medical opioid use or incomplete data.
  • Results showed that patients who received opioids in the ED were more likely to engage in at-risk opioid use within three months, suggesting a link between ED opioid exposure and potential misuse.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Trauma memories can vividly affect survivors, particularly in the context of PTSD, impacting normal functioning.
  • Most neuroscience research on trauma focuses on threat-processing, neglecting the role of visual circuitry, which is crucial for understanding PTSD symptoms.
  • A study of 278 participants found that structural changes in the ventral visual stream post-trauma are linked to PTSD symptoms like nightmares and cognitive issues, suggesting that this visual network might worsen trauma memory reactivation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hippo campal impairments are reliably associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, little research has characterized how increased threat sensitivity may interact with arousal responses to alter hippocampal reactivity, and further how these interactions relate to the sequelae of trauma-related symptoms. In a sample of individuals recently exposed to trauma ( = 116, 76 female), we found that PTSD symptoms at 2 weeks were associated with decreased hippocampal responses to threat as assessed with fMRI. Further, the relationship between hippocampal threat sensitivity and PTSD symptomology only emerged in individuals who showed transient, high threat-related arousal, as assayed by an independently collected measure of fear potentiated startle.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the link between dissociation, specifically derealization, and adverse psychiatric outcomes following trauma, aiming to understand if it can help identify at-risk individuals.
  • It uses self-reported data and brain imaging from participants two weeks post-trauma to assess the predictive power of derealization on later symptoms like PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
  • The results indicate that persistent derealization is a significant early marker, both psychologically and biologically, for predicting worse mental health outcomes, highlighting the need for assessing dissociation after trauma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF