This study compares the effectiveness of prolonged exposure therapy, sertraline, and their combination to treat PTSD. Participants receive medication management visits and/or prolonged exposure therapy.

This research taking place at the Ralph H. Johnson VAMC and surrounding Community-Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs), specifically that Savannah Clinic. It is for Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) who have had combat related posttraumatic stress disorder.

This study will use cue exposure to update an individual's smoking-related memory with information that will decrease response to smoking cues. The goal is to alter existing smoking-related memory directly. Positive findings could lead to a treatment that uniquely targets cue-elicited craving and response in smokers, thereby addressing a major obstacle to successful quit attempts.

This study will provide preliminary information regarding the durability of long-term symptom relief after response to acute TMS administration in a medication-free population comparing two different methods of maintenance treatment: a) scheduled once monthly TMS treatment with TMS reintroduction for symptomatic worsening or b) regularly scheduled observational follow up with on-demand TMS for symptomatic worsening.

This is an open-label trial that will evaluate the overall effectiveness, safety and tolerability of aripiprazole IM depot as maintenance treatment in patients with bipolar I disorder. This will be accomplished through the following specific objectives:
Primary: To evaluate the safety and tolerability of aripiprazole IM depot administered every 4 weeks for 52 weeks to patients with bipolar I disorder.
Secondary: To evaluate the efficacy, as measured by the percentage of stable subjects at baseline who remain stable at endpoint, of aripiprazole IM.

This pilot study will examine the effects of TMS on pain and craving among individuals with prescription opiate dependence. The study will involve 10 participants and six study visits.

Individuals with schizophrenia often do not receive empirically supported psychosocial treatments for depression. This is a considerable issue in that individuals with schizophrenia are at elevated risk for depression relative to the general population, and the presence of depression in this patient population is associated with increased suicide risk/mortality and impaired psychosocial functioning and quality of life. This study is significant in that it proposes to establish the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a frontline psychosocial intervention for depression, Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression (BATD), in Veterans with schizophrenia treated within VAMCs using an open trial study design. As such, the proposed study represents a unique opportunity for the VHA to lead a much needed movement to establish viable psychosocial treatment alternatives for a vulnerable patient population that is routinely underserved.

The Sleep Research Data Repository (SRDR) aimed to systematically collect, analyze and store for future research sleep and sleep disorders related biological and psychological information. It will include sleep physiological measurements and the results of interviews, questionnaires, and laboratory tests. The SRDR will contain sleep related information obtained from healthy subjects and patients with psychiatric, substance abuse, neurological disorders, or any medical conditions associated with sleep disturbances. SRDR data will be made available to current and future IRB-approved investigators associated with this protocol.

MUSC is one of several sites throughout the US linked together into a clinical trials consortium. Numerous medications and devices will be tested over the next few years at the study sites. This omnibus protocol is designed to uniformly acquire brain MRI data in all participants in all of the trials at all of the sites in a manner that ultimately will allow for large analyses. There are also plans to recruit screen and scan control subjects.

Thousands of Americans each year are bereaved by the violent death of a loved one. Violent deaths may include homicide, suicide, and motor vehicle fatalities. This proposed project will be a qualitative study of perceived treatment needs and attitudes towards treatment among violently bereaved individuals. Participants will be invited to take part in a series of focus groups designed to help identify and develop interventions tailored to meet the mental health needs of the violently bereaved, particularly those experiencing more severe psychiatric problems like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and complicated bereavement. Information provided by participants will be used to help develop a psychological treatment for violently bereaved individuals.

Our recently completed study has provided the first evidence that administration of the medication propranolol, following exposure to cocaine cues, can alter drug-associated memories and reduce craving and other drug cue-elicited responses in cocaine addicted persons. The proposed research will use two methods to increase the memory altering effects of propranolol observed in our recently completed study, and document lasting effects not only on craving and cue-elicited reactions, but also on cocaine use. Positive findings will set the stage for a formal clinical trial that could lead to significantly improved treatment outcomes for this treatment-resistant addiction.