Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to develop a new behavioral treatment for U.S. combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), very brief exposure to combat-related stimuli. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. How does Very Brief Exposure (combat images and control everyday images) and Visible Exposure to combat stimuli affect brain activity and subjective fear ratings?
2. To what extent are participants aware of the stimuli presented and tolerating the exposures?

All participants will view both very brief exposure and visible exposure to combat stimuli in the functional magnetic brain imaging (fMRI) scan. They will provide ratings of fear, awareness, and tolerability. Researchers will compare U.S. combat veterans with PTSD and healthy controls to confirm differences in brain region activation and ratings.

Conditions

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Intervention / Treatment

• Other: Very Brief Exposure to Combat Images

Primary Outcome Measures

• Mean Activation of Frontostriatal and Prefrontal Brain Regions to combat stimuli in PTSD (Day 2)
  A hypothesis-driven, group-level analysis will test brain activity, measured as Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) response, in 4 regions of interest while minimizing Type II error.

Countries

United States

Locations and Investigators

• Brain Imaging Lab, Los Angeles, United States (Recruiting)
  • Courtney Marcelino

Study Officials

• Bradley M Peterson, MD (Principal Investigator) — Children's Hospital Los Angeles