Ketamine-enhanced prolonged exposure therapy in veterans with PTSD: A randomized controlled trial protocol.

Background: The 2023 VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of PTSD recommends individual, manualized trauma-focused such as Prolonged Exposure (PE) over pharmacologic interventions for the primary treatment of PTSD. Unfortunately, clinical trials of trauma-based therapies in the military and veteran population showed that 30% to 50% of patients did not demonstrate clinically meaningful symptom change. Ketamine, an FDA-approved anesthetic with potent non-competitive glutamatergic N-methyl-d-aspartate antagonistic properties, has demonstrated to enhance the recall of extinction learning and decrease fear renewal without interference of extinction training in preclinical studies.

Self-efficacy, male rape myth acceptance, and devaluation of emotions in sexual trauma sequelae: Findings from a sample of male veterans.

Sexual trauma is an understudied but regrettably significant problem among male Veterans. As in women, sexual trauma often results in serious mental health consequences for men. Therefore, to guide potential future interventions in this important group, we investigated associations among self-efficacy, male rape myth acceptance, devaluation of emotions, and psychiatric symptom severity after male sexual victimization.

Sexual assault during the time of Gulf War I: a cross-sectional survey of U.S. service men who later applied for Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD disability benefits.

Objectives: To estimate the cumulative incidence of sexual assault during the time of Gulf War I among male Gulf War I Veterans who later applied for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) post-traumatic stress disorder disability benefits and to identify potential risk and protective factors for sexual assault within the population.

Method: Mailed, national, cross-sectional survey supplemented with VA administrative and clinical data.

Results: Of 2,415 Veterans sampled, 1,700 (70%) responded.

Prevalence and consequences of adult sexual assault of men: review of empirical findings and state of the literature.

Male victims of adult sexual assault (ASA) are understudied as compared with female victims. Further, commonly-held myths about sexual assault suggest that men cannot be victims or that, if men are victims, they are relatively physically and emotionally unharmed by sexual assault. The goal of this paper was to systematically review the empirical literature on ASA among men to evaluate the veracity of these myths.

Sexual assault and rape perpetration by college men: the role of the big five personality traits.

A sample of 521 college men completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and an expanded version of the Sexual Experiences Survey to examine whether variation in the Big Five personality traits in a normal, college population provides any insight into the nature of sexual assault and rape perpetrators. Rape perpetrators reported lower levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness when compared to both sexual assault perpetrators and nonperpetrators, and lower levels of Extraversion when compared to nonperpetrators. Rape perpetrators also endorsed lower levels of tendermindedness, excitement-seeking, warmth, positive emotions, feelings, altruism, competence, and dutifulness, and higher levels of vulnerability.

Attraction to sexual violence towards women, sexual abuse of children, and non-sexual criminal behavior: testing the specialist vs. generalist models in male college students.

A sample of 492 college men anonymously completed an expanded version of the Sexual Experiences Survey, the revised Attraction to Sexual Aggression Scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale Short Form to investigate the relations among perpetration of sexual violence (including rape and sexual assault), attraction to sexual violence, attraction to childhood sexual abuse, and attraction towards other crimes while controlling for the impact of social desirability. Analyses indicated that attractions towards sexual violence, general criminality, and childhood sexual abuse were all significantly interrelated. In addition, sexual assault perpetrators reported higher levels of all three types of attraction as compared to nonperpetrators whereas rape perpetrators reported higher levels of attraction to sexual aggression and criminality.