Can beta-blockers also help PTSD?

Filed in archive Treatment on July 28, 2005

An study suggests that beta-blockers can help with PTSD:

"Cornell University psychiatrists are carrying out tests using beta-blockers, the journal Nature reports.

The drug has been shown to interfere with the way the brain stores memories.

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects around one in three of people caught up in such events, and memories can be triggered just by a sound or smell.

People with PTSD are given counselling, but because it is not always effective, researchers have been looking for alternative therapies . . .

. . . The beta-blocker propranolol has been found to block the neurotransmitters involved in laying down memories.

Studies have shown that rats who have learned to fear a tone followed by an electric shock lose that fear if propranolol is administered after the tone starts."

Propranolol is commonly used for stage fright or performance anxiety (although not FDA-approved for that treatment). Is PTSD the next step? ("Beta-blockers 'blot out memories'", BBC, Jul.28)