Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Basic Science and Clinical Practice

This is an exceptionally well-written and edited text, with a fine selection of chapter authors. Editors Terence Keane and Joseph LeDoux have reputations as international experts in the areas of clinical assessment and treatment and the underlying cortical and subcortical processes that are disrupted in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); Priyattam Shiromani is a well-known researcher in the areas of sleep, neural circuitry, and molecular neuroscience. The text is divided into 6 sections: “Amygdala and Fear,” “Animal Models of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Arousal,” “Stress Hormones in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” “Brain Imaging in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” and “Treatment Strategies.” The subtitle sounds more balanced than the actual content of the book. Of the 18 chapters, only 3 deal exclusively with treatment strategies, and one of these addresses virtual reality therapy, an experimental approach that currently has not achieved acceptance in mainstream clinical work. Of the 42 contributing authors, 6 are physicians. Some chapters provide broad reviews of the published literature related to assessment of treatment, while others focus more on the author's particular areas of research and publications.