Psychologist Alain Brunet of McGill University in Montreal (Canada) is looking for ways to make those improvements happen, through the use of an old-fashioned 'beta-blocker' drug called Propranolol. Primarily intended as heart medicine, beta blocker drugs like Propranolol have long been used "off label" to treat anxiety patients because they block or lessen "peripheral autonomic activation" (e.g., symptoms of anxiety occurring in the periphery of the body such as might be noticeable in the limbs e.g., clammy skin, sweating, shaking, etc.). A socially phobic patient who normally would freak out during a speech can take Propranolol and not notice their palms getting sweaty, etc. Because they are not distracted by arousal symptoms that do not occur (or occur with less force), they are better able to remain focused on their speaking task and to execute it without incident.
Propranolol may have another useful effect as well - in that it may suppress the long term storage of emotional memories. A Psychiatrist at Harvard, Dr. Roger Pitman, has shown that trauma patients treated with Propranolol immediately after traumas (accidents, rapes) show somewhat fewer PTSD-like symptoms than patients who did not receive Propranolol. The explanation for this is that Propranolol interferes with the formation of the strong emotional memories that might otherwise crystallize into true trauma memories.
The articles I've read about the Brunet and Pitman research suggest these researchers are thinking that the mechanism for the Propranolol effect lays in its ability to block the storage or re-storage of trauma memories. However, another explanation is also possible. It might be enough that the drug simply blunts the SNS arousal and activation that would normally occur when trauma memories are discussed.
Treating PTSD with Beta-Blockers
Posted by Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. on Tue, Apr 18th 2006
Reader's response to article: After reading your article I was greatly dismayed to note that you would class the memory suppression induced by beta blockers as beneficial. These drugs do not only 'supress' memory, they remove the emotional attatchment of memories both long and short term. They are also not selective about which memories will be be stripped of thier emotive content and can desensitise futher emotive responses, i.e. to graphic or disturbing imagery. Do you value the memory of your wife on your wedding day? The pivotal experiences through which you establish meaning in your life? Would you, for all your triumphs over adversity, through difficulties which have hindered you in some ways yet enriched your life in others think it worth it for them to be rendered obselete in a matter of hours? Is it a good thing to veiw images of injured and dying people and feel nothing? "If you disrupt those memories, remove continuity, what you have is an erosion of personhood." This was said by Dr. William B. Hurlbut, a consulting professor in biology at Stanford University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, I am deeply comforted that someone has the broad mindedness to consider the humanistic and ethical side of issues pertaining to the use of these drugs in an unbiased manner. I find the research alluded to in your article disturbing due to the casual nature in which it is expressed. An overdose or a mis-diagnoses due to oversensitivity to a beta-blocker such as propranolol can shatter somebodies life, or more to the point shatter somebody, leaving them with serious mental health difficulties and a complete inability to cope with the altered state in which they may find themselves.
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=weblog&id=51&wlid=6&cn=1
