Search

Background While effective treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exist, many individuals, including military personnel and veterans fail to respond to them. Equine‐assisted therapy (EAT), a novel PTSD treatment, may complement existing PTSD interventions. This study employs longitudinal neuro‐imaging, including structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), resting state‐fMRI (rs‐fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), to determine mechanisms and predictors of EAT outcomes for PTSD. Method Nineteen veterans with PTSD completed eight weekly group sessions of EAT undergoing multimodal MRI assessments before and after treatment. Clinical assessments were conducted at baseline, post‐treatment and at 3‐month follow‐up. Results At post‐treatment patients showed a significant increase in caudate functional connectivity (FC) and reduction in the gray matter density of the thalamus and the caudate. The increase of caudate FC was positively associated with clinical improvement seen immediately at post‐treatment and at 3‐month follow‐up. In addition, higher baseline caudate FC was associated with greater PTSD symptom reduction post‐treatment. Conclusions This exploratory study is the first to demonstrate that EAT can affect functional and structural changes in the brains of patients with PTSD. The findings suggest that EAT may target reward circuitry responsiveness and produce a caudate pruning effect from pre‐ to post‐treatment., This study employs longitudinal neuro‐imaging, including structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), resting state‐fMRI (rs‐fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), to determine mechanisms and predictors of EAT outcomes for PTSD.

School psychologists should be aware of developmental risk factors for children who have been abused or neglected. The present study used the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition to examine the cognitive abilities of 120 children in foster care subsequent to maltreatment. Results indicated that, compared to a demographically matched comparison group, the children who experienced maltreatment had lower full-scale intelligence quotients and profile analysis uncovered potential strengths and weaknesses. The perceptual reasoning and working memory abilities of the maltreated group were commensurate with those of the comparison group. Conversely, the overall verbal comprehension and processing speed abilities of the maltreated children were significantly lower than the control group. At the subtest level, the children who experienced maltreatment had lower Vocabulary, Comprehension, and Coding scores. To address the paucity of information in the literature about children who have been neglected, follow-up analyses were conducted for children who were neglected, but not abused. Results indicated a similar, but not identical, pattern of findings. Implications and recommendations for school psychologists are discussed.