text_1: Common antibiotic may help to prevent or treat PTSD
text_2: This University College London news release describes a complex piece of research that combines cell cultures, human volunteers, a theory that enzymatic proteins called matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors are involved in forming threat memories inherent in PTSD, and that a common antibiotic may prevent their formation by blocking the enzymes. The fact that the research was a theoretical proof-of concept is buried deep in the release so readers might think, based on the headline and earlier paragraphs alone, that the evidence is stronger than it is. The published research article describes some of the uncertainties involved in biopsychological investigations in animal models and people, but the release doesn’t mention any of them, nor does it include any meaningful numbers to describe the benefits. It does raise the issue of the practicality of using drugs to prevent PTSD since no one can predict when a traumatic event will occur. The search for the neurochemical and biological roots of PTSD and other kinds of crippling anxieties is a scientific challenge for good reason. The human “mind” is difficult to access; animal models are notoriously unreliable; and experiments on people designed to induce, evoke, or otherwise probe such trauma may be unethical. The work described here may indeed be an important early step in understanding the role of signaling pathways outside of nerve cells in creating PTSD, and of novel strategies using an already widely available set of drugs to sabotage that role. But a lot more research will be needed to affirm the idea and a release on the research should make that point very clear and very high up in the text. When and if the blocking of a conditioned fear response by a drug is proven, who would want to take a long term drug in case a terrible event befalls them in the future? That would be taking “preventive medicine” to a whole new level.