Meeting Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mood disorder that occurs in individuals who have experienced a traumatic event such as an assault, war/combat, natural disaster, or other serious incident. Individuals who experience PTSD may have flashbacks to the event, feel angry, or display stress responses when reminded of the incident. Previous research has suggested that PTSD is an enhanced Pavlovian fear conditioning response that relies on an exaggerated amygdalar response altering how the memory in encoded (Pitman, 1989)). A study conducted with U.S. military personnel supported the use of an opioid regimen immediately following a traumatic event as a pharmacotherapy (Hollbrook et al., 2010). It is thought that the opioid exposure reduced the likelihood of developing PTSD, likely through neural modulation (Hollbrook et al., 2010). I hypothesize that the success of the opioid treatment is due to the drug’s ability to suppress the amygdalar response following a traumatic experience. Therefore, the present study will use a total of 100 Zebrafish (Danio rerio) to investigate the differences between those treated with an opioid (morphine) and those without in a model of fear conditioning. Here we compare the behavioral and physiological response difference between those groups treated with an opioid drug and those who have not.
