Publications by authors named "O S Duek"
Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection in the first year of life has been linked with an increased risk for asthma. Some propose that RSV-induced inflammation leads to lasting airway changes, while others contend that RSV bronchiolitis is a marker for underlying predisposition. Social distancing adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic reduction in RSV activity, providing an unexpected opportunity to investigate this debate.
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- - Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious mental health condition where individuals repeatedly relive traumatic experiences, and the role of the cerebellum in this process is still under investigation.
- - In a study with 28 chronic PTSD patients, researchers used fMRI to examine brain activity while participants listened to their own traumatic and sad memories, finding specific activation in cerebellar lobule VI during trauma recall linked to symptom severity.
- - Results indicate that while lobule VI is particularly engaged with traumatic memories, another cerebellar area, Crus II, is also active during sad memories, suggesting its broader role in managing negative emotions.
Article Synopsis
- PTSD is associated with changes in brain communication, specifically lower connectivity in the uncinate fasciculus and between the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
- Exposure-based therapy can reduce PTSD symptoms and alter resting-state functional connectivity, but how these changes relate to each other was previously unclear.
- A study found that improvements in functional connectivity after therapy are linked to better structural connectivity and reduced PTSD symptoms over time.
Article Synopsis
- The DSM's criteria for mental disorders allow for varied symptoms among individuals, but this has led to concerns about the reliability of these classifications in research due to inconsistent symptom combinations.
- The study investigates how symptom definitions and assessments influence the likelihood of specific symptom combinations in disorders like PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety.
- Analyzing data from over 155,000 participants revealed that while some symptom combinations were more common, most had low probabilities of occurrence, indicating a skewed distribution in the way symptoms manifest across different individuals.
Objective: Although treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is effective in reducing symptom severity, remission rates are low. One potential underlying reason for treatment ineffectiveness is differential response of specific PTSD symptom clusters. Using data from a national Veterans Affairs (VA) residential PTSD treatment cohort, we conducted a longitudinal study to examine changes in PTSD symptom clusters from admission to 1-year follow-up.
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