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Heart Rate Variability Responses to a Standardized Virtual Reality Exposure in Veterans with PTSD

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (T Geracioti and K Chard, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Opinion Statement

Purpose In this article, we present data incorporating heart rate variability (HRV) into a graded virtual reality protocol performed in both a combat environment and an active control (classroom) environment, for combat Veterans with and without PTSD.

Recent Findings Exposure therapy for PTSD has proven effective. There is increasing interest in the use of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET)-customized environments incorporating auditory, visual, and olfactory sensory modalities, to augment exposure-based treatment for PTSD. Particularly for combat Veterans, VRET may offer the advantage of a more realistic in vivo exposure for treatment. When combined with concurrent psychophysiological data, VRET has the potential to inform PTSD diagnosis, predict therapeutic responsiveness, and provide objective indicators of treatment response. HRV was not different between Veteran with and without PTSD, but our group recently found that Veterans with PTSD had differential skin conductance responses compared with Veterans without PTSD.

Summary Virtual reality is a promising treatment for PTSD. Methodological factors may have influenced the absence of significant findings in the current data. Future research which optimizes the potential use of psychophysiological assessments for the development of biomarkers and prediction of PTSD treatment response, or to inform the process of PTSD treatment, remain important.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Providence Veteran Affairs Medical Center, 830 Chalkstone Avenue, Providence, RI, 02938, USA

    Samuel J. Ridout MD, PhD, Christopher M. Spofford PhD, Mascha van’t Wout-Frank PhD, Noah S. Philip MD, William S. Unger PhD & M. Tracie Shea PhD

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Samuel J. Ridout MD, PhD, Mascha van’t Wout-Frank PhD, Noah S. Philip MD, Linda L. Carpenter MD, Audrey R. Tyrka MD, PhD & M. Tracie Shea PhD

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH, USA

    Christopher M. Spofford PhD

  4. Mood Disorders Research Program and Laboratory for Clinical and Translational Neuroscience, Butler Hospital, Providence, RI, USA

    Linda L. Carpenter MD & Audrey R. Tyrka MD, PhD

Authors
  1. Samuel J. Ridout MD, PhD
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  2. Christopher M. Spofford PhD
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  8. M. Tracie Shea PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Tracie Shea PhD.

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Conflict of Interest

Dr. Carpenter reports personal fees from the Brown Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, during the conduct of the study.

Dr. Philip reports grants from the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, during the conduct of the study.

Samuel J. Ridout declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Christopher M. Spofford declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Mascha van’t Wout-Frank declares that she has no conflict of interest.

William S. Unger declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Audrey R. Tyrka declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Tracie Shea reports grants from the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, during the conduct of the study.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Funding/Disclosures

This work was supported by U.S. Department of Defense W81XWH-07-1-0689, R25 MH101076 (SJR) and IK2 CX000724 (NSP). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or National Institutes of Health. The authors report no relevant conflicts of interest.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders

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Ridout, S.J., Spofford, C.M., van’t Wout-Frank, M. et al. Heart Rate Variability Responses to a Standardized Virtual Reality Exposure in Veterans with PTSD. Curr Treat Options Psych 4, 271–280 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-017-0118-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-017-0118-9

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