Peter J Colvonen, Lisa H Glassman, Laura D Crocker, Melissa M Buttner, Henry Orff, Dawn M Schiehser, Sonya B Norman, Niloofar Afari
Although our understanding of the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), brain structure and function, neural networks, stress-related systems, and genetics is growing, there is considerably less attention given to which biological markers predict evidence-based PTSD psychotherapy outcomes. Our systematic PRISMA-informed review of 20 studies examined biomarkers as predictors of evidence-based PTSD psychotherapy outcomes. Results provide preliminary evidence that specific structural and functional neural systems (involved in information processing), glucocorticoid sensitivity and metabolism (part of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the response to stress), heart rate (involved with fear habituation), gene methylation, and certain genotypes (associated with serotonin and glucocorticoids) predicted positive response to PTSD treatment...
April 2017: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews