In a recent round of grant awards, the STRONG STAR consortium, based at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), was awarded a total of $17 million in funding by the U.S. Department of Defense to launch eight new programs. Selected. A research project focused on traumatic brain injury and psychological health.
The integrated project will allow the consortium to take a major step forward in its mission to advance the care of service members and veterans who are recovering from war-related trauma and the psychological scars it inflicts.
STRONG STAR (South Texas Network of Research Organizations Directing Trauma and Resilience Research) is a national research group led by UT Health San Antonio that brings together the expertise of military, civilian, and veteran agencies and researchers from across the country. doing. Its clinical trials network, funded by the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and other agencies, takes a synergistic approach to better advance military psychological health advancements.
As a group, these new projects will help us better understand the chronic problems of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, two hallmark wounds of the post-9/11 war, and a range of related illnesses. It can help you better assess, treat, and prevent it. conditions that result from them or that contribute to their complexity. ”
Dr. Alan Peterson, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UT Health San Antonio and Director of the STRONG STAR Consortium
“These associated conditions include suicide risk, sleep disturbances, and chronic pain, such as post-traumatic headaches and chronic headaches that develop or worsen from traumatic brain injury,” he said. “Another is tinnitus, which is a persistent ringing in the ears that can occur after a brain injury. Affected by pain.”
The new study will address these questions through a variety of approaches, as part of six randomized clinical trials, one treatment development project, and one long-term follow-up project with previous study participants. Some of these projects will be led by researchers at UT Health San Antonio, while others will be led by his STRONG STAR collaborators at other institutions, including research participants from various military and veteran research facilities. Be led.
The new research project is outlined below.
Combining PTSD treatment and suicide prevention therapy to improve outcomes. This clinical trial will test whether combining her two evidence-based treatments can significantly reduce both PTSD symptoms and suicide risk. One is a major PTSD treatment called cognitive processing therapy, and the other is a suicide prevention approach called crisis planning. The trial will include both active and retired military personnel.
Immediately effective interventions for severe suicide risk. The trial will involve patients who were treated in the emergency department before being admitted to a psychiatric hospital for severe suicide risk. The researchers plan to look for two main outcomes they hope to achieve: (1) Does intramuscular injection of ketamine result in a rapid reduction in suicidal ideation? (2) Does it reduce suicide risk after a crisis? Will the addition of a crisis response plan, a short-term intervention, help maintain that improvement over time?
Prevention programs to reduce suicide risk after brain injury. Because traumatic brain injury can increase a person's risk of suicide, this clinical trial will evaluate crisis planning as a secondary suicide prevention intervention. Service members who are already undergoing treatment related to a brain injury will be invited to participate in the study and will be provided with brief training in self-selected behaviors and activities that they can use in a crisis. At the end of the study, researchers will determine whether the intervention effectively reduced risk for those who received the intervention compared to those who did not receive the intervention.
Adaptive PTSD treatment that personalizes care and maximizes effectiveness. This clinical trial will test customized intervention strategies to optimize treatment response and reduce dropout among veterans with PTSD. This project aims to (1) change the type of treatment early on for non-responders, (2) provide daily digital prompts to improve homework completion rates, and (3) respond. We are trying to determine whether outcomes can be improved by reducing the intensity of treatment for patients who are doing well. in the early stages of treatment.
Improving the understanding and treatment of PTSD and tinnitus after brain injury. The researchers plan to work with military personnel and veterans who suffer from PTSD and tinnitus after brain injury to assess whether combining treatments for each disorder improves outcomes for both patients. This study uses cognitive processing therapy, a leading PTSD treatment, and progressive tinnitus management, a cognitive-behavioral approach to managing tinnitus and the distress it causes. Some participants will undergo neuroimaging tests before and after the treatment program. This could reveal the brain networks involved in PTSD and tinnitus and how they are affected by treatment, which could guide future research and approaches to care.
Brain games and stimulation: Improving executive function after concussion. This clinical trial in military personnel and veterans will evaluate the effectiveness of a computer game designed to improve cognitive function after mild traumatic brain injury or concussion. The team will also examine whether adding brain stimulation, using a technique called electrical transcranial magnetic stimulation, can further improve post-concussion symptoms.
Extending effective headache treatments to alternative approaches to PTSD recovery. In a previous consortium trial, researchers found that a non-drug treatment designed for post-traumatic headaches not only significantly reduced headache-related disability; Did. It also reduced her co-occurring PTSD symptoms as effectively as his gold standard PTSD treatment. In the future, we plan to update the therapy and treatment manual that specifically focuses on the symptoms of PTSD. The team will then test the approach on soldiers suffering from PTSD after a brain injury. The purpose is to identify alternative approaches to her PTSD care that the patient may prefer to traditional therapy focused on her trauma.
Follow up with previous research participants over time to inform the field of research. The large-scale longitudinal study will allow STRONG STAR to conduct long-term follow-up of thousands of individuals who participated in the consortium's previous research studies. Participants in the clinical trial will be contacted in a few years to assess their success. Researchers are particularly interested in determining whether treatment responders maintain treatment effects over time, thereby providing valuable information about the long-term effectiveness of the treatment they received. will be obtained. They also want to know whether patients who did not respond find subsequent alternative treatments effective, or whether their symptoms remain chronic, which could also provide information to the field. will be provided. In another arm of the project, STRONG STAR will follow up military members who participated in a longitudinal study that will include various assessments before and after combat deployment to determine the long-term effects of combat deployment.
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University of Texas San Antonio Health Science Center
