Prospective associations between intelligence, working memory capacity, and intrusive memories of a traumatic film: Potential mediating effects of rumination and memory disorganization.

Background And Objectives: Field research indicates that lower intelligence may predispose trauma-exposed individuals towards the development of re-experiencing symptoms. However, this assumption requires further testing in controlled prospective studies. In the current analog study, we tested whether lower fluid intelligence and lower working memory capacity (WMC) independently contribute to intrusion development.

Therapy Dogs as a Crisis Intervention After Traumatic Events? - An Experimental Study.

Animal-assisted therapy has been proposed as a treatment adjunct for traumatized patients. In animal-assisted crisis response, dogs are used directly after a traumatic event to reduce stress and anxiety. However, to date there are few controlled studies investigating the effects of therapy dogs on PTSD symptoms and to our knowledge there is no study investigating the effects of a therapy dog intervention directly after a traumatic event.

Conditioned responses to trauma reminders: How durable are they over time and does memory integration reduce them?

Background And Objectives: Stimuli associated with the trauma are important triggers for intrusive memories after a traumatic event. Clinical models assume that fear conditioning for neutral stimuli encountered during traumatic events is a potential cause of these intrusions, and that memory integration has the effect of reducing these associations, thereby also reducing intrusions. This study examines whether conditioned associations lead to intrusive trauma memories and how they are affected by memory integration.

Memory control ability modulates intrusive memories after analogue trauma.

Background: Most people suffer from intrusive memories in the aftermath of trauma. For survivors' well-being, it is key that these intrusions are controlled. Memory control can be exerted through retrieval suppression.

Presence of a dog reduces subjective but not physiological stress responses to an analog trauma.

Dogs are known to have stress and anxiety reducing effects. Several studies have shown that dogs are able to calm people during cognitive and performance stressors. Recently, therapy dogs have been proposed as a treatment adjunct for post-traumatic stress disorder patients.

Effects of acute cortisol administration on perceptual priming of trauma-related material.

Intrusive memories are a hallmark symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They reflect excessive and uncontrolled retrieval of the traumatic memory. Acute elevations of cortisol are known to impair the retrieval of already stored memory information.

PTSD in paramedics: resilience and sense of coherence.

Background: Paramedics are frequently subjected to traumatic experiences and have higher PTSD prevalence rates than people in the general population. However, the vast majority of paramedics do not develop PTSD. While several risk factors for PTSD have been established, little is known about protective factors.