Pre-trauma memory contextualization as predictor for PTSD-like behavior in male rats.

While many people experience potentially threatening events during their life, only a minority develops posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The identification of individuals at risk among those exposed to trauma is crucial for PTSD prevention in the future. Since re-experiencing trauma elements outside of the original trauma-context is a core feature of PTSD, we investigate if the ability to bind memories to their original encoding context (i.

Impaired learning, memory, and extinction in posttraumatic stress disorder: translational meta-analysis of clinical and preclinical studies.

Current evidence-based treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are efficacious in only part of PTSD patients. Therefore, novel neurobiologically informed approaches are urgently needed. Clinical and translational neuroscience point to altered learning and memory processes as key in (models of) PTSD psychopathology.

The rodent object-in-context task: A systematic review and meta-analysis of important variables.

Environmental information plays an important role in remembering events. Information about stable aspects of the environment (here referred to as 'context') and the event are combined by the hippocampal system and stored as context-dependent memory. In rodents (such as rats and mice), context-dependent memory is often investigated with the object-in-context task.

Individual differences in the encoding of contextual details following acute stress: An explorative study.

Information processing under stressful circumstances depends on many experimental conditions, like the information valence or the point in time at which brain function is probed. This also holds true for memorizing contextual details (or 'memory contextualization'). Moreover, large interindividual differences appear to exist in (context-dependent) memory formation after stress, but it is mostly unknown which individual characteristics are essential.

No Time-Dependent Effects of Psychosocial Stress on Fear Contextualization and Generalization: A Randomized-Controlled Study With Healthy Participants.

The formation of context-dependent fear memories (fear contextualization) can aid the recognition of danger in new, similar, situations. Overgeneralization of fear is often seen as hallmark of anxiety and trauma-related disorders. In this randomized-controlled study, we investigated whether exposure to a psychosocial stressor influences retention of fear contextualization and generalization in a time-dependent manner.

The relation between anxious personality traits and fear generalization in healthy subjects: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Anxious personality characteristics form a risk factor for anxiety disorders. A proposed mechanistic pathway is that anxious personality could lead to greater vulnerability by increasing fear generalization. Here, we investigate if there is evidence for this relationship before the onset of pathological anxiety, with a meta-analysis in healthy subjects.

Time-dependent effects of psychosocial stress on the contextualization of neutral memories.

Memories about stressful experiences need to be both specific and generalizable to adequately guide future behavior. Memory strength is influenced by emotional significance, and contextualization (i.e.

Trait anxiety mediates the effect of stress exposure on post-traumatic stress disorder and depression risk in cardiac surgery patients.

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression are common after cardiac surgery. Lifetime stress exposure and personality traits may influence the development of these psychiatric conditions.

Methods: Self-reported rates of PTSD and depression and potential determinants (i.

The Effect of Dexamethasone on Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression After Cardiac Surgery and Intensive Care Admission: Longitudinal Follow-Up of a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: Cardiac surgery and postoperative admission to the ICU may lead to posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. Perioperatively administered corticosteroids potentially alter the risk of development of these psychiatric conditions, by affecting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. However, findings of previous studies are inconsistent.

Reducing patients' anxiety and uncertainty, and improving recall in bad news consultations.

Objective: Patients' recall of provided information during bad news consultations is poor. According to the attentional narrowing hypothesis, the emotional arousal caused by the bad news might be responsible for this hampered information processing. Because affective communication has proven to be effective in tempering patients' emotional reactions, the current study used an experimental design to explore whether physician's affective communication in bad news consultations decreases patients' anxiety and uncertainty and improves information recall.

The power of clinicians' affective communication: how reassurance about non-abandonment can reduce patients' physiological arousal and increase information recall in bad news consultations. An experimental study using analogue patients.

Objective: The diagnosis of incurable cancer may evoke physiological arousal in patients. Physiological arousal can negatively impact patients' recall of information provided in the medical consultation. We aim to investigate whether clinicians' affective communication during a bad news consultation will decrease patients' physiological arousal and will improve recall.