ABSTRACT

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by impairments in extinction learning and social behaviour, which are targeted by trauma-focused cognitive behavioural treatment (TF-CBT). The biological underpinnings of TF-CBT can be better understood by adding biomarkers to the clinical evaluation of interventions. Due to their involvement in social functioning and fear processing, oxytocin and arginine vasopressin might be informative biomarkers for TF-CBT, but to date, this has never been tested.

Objective: To differentiate the impact of traumatic event exposure and PTSD symptoms on blood oxytocin and vasopressin concentrations. Further, to describe courses of PTSD symptoms, oxytocin and vasopressin during an internet-based TF-CBT and explore interactions between these parameters.

Method: We compared oxytocin and vasopressin between three groups of active and former male service members of the German Armed Forces (n = 100): PTSD patients (n = 39), deployed healthy controls who experienced a deployment-related traumatic event (n = 33) and non-deployed healthy controls who never experienced a traumatic event (n = 28). PTSD patients underwent a 5-week internet-based TF-CBT. We correlated PTSD symptoms with oxytocin and vasopressin before treatment onset. Further, we analysed courses of PTSD symptoms, oxytocin and vasopressin from pre- to post-treatment and 3 months follow-up, as well as interactions between the three parameters.

Results: Oxytocin and vasopressin did not differ between the groups and were unrelated to PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms were highly stable over time, whereas the endocrine parameters were not, and they also did not change in mean. Oxytocin and vasopressin were not associated with PTSD symptoms longitudinally.

Conclusions: Mainly due to their insufficient intraindividual stability, single measurements of endogenous oxytocin and vasopressin concentrations are not informative biomarkers for TF-CBT. We discuss how the stability of these biomarkers might be increased and how they could be better related to the specific impairments targeted by TF-CBT.

摘要

背景：创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 的特征是消退学习和社会行为受损，这是以创伤为中心的认知行为治疗 (TF-CBT) 的目标。通过将生物标志物添加到干预措施的临床评估中，可以更好地理解 TF-CBT 的生物学基础。由于它们参与社会功能和恐惧处理，催产素和精氨酸加压素可能是 TF-CBT 的信息生物标志物，但迄今为止，这从未经过测试。

目的：区分创伤事件暴露和 PTSD 症状对血液催产素和加压素浓度的影响。此外，描述基于互联网的 TF-CBT 期间 PTSD 症状、催产素和加压素的过程，并探索这些参数之间的相互作用。

方_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 33) 和从未经历过创伤事件的未部署健康对照 ( n = 28)。PTSD 患者接受了为期 5 周的基于互联网的 TF-CBT。我们在治疗开始前将 PTSD 症状与催产素和加压素相关联。此外，我们分析了从治疗前到治疗后和 3 个月的随访期间 PTSD 症状、催产素和加压素的病程，以及这三个参数之间的相互作用。

结果：催产素和加压素在各组之间没有差异，并且与 PTSD 症状无关。PTSD 症状随着时间的推移高度稳定，而内分泌参数则不然，而且它们的平均值也没有变化。催产素和加压素与 PTSD 症状纵向无关。

结论：主要由于个体内稳定性不足，内源性催产素和加压素浓度的单次测量不是 TF-CBT 的信息生物标志物。我们讨论了如何提高这些生物标志物的稳定性，以及它们如何更好地与 TF-CBT 所针对的特定损伤相关联。