Tag: Thomas Ritz

Wall Street Journal: For better talk therapy, try taking a nap

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 28, 2016

Doctors are finding creative ways to make cognitive behavioral therapy more effective

The Wall Street Journal has covered the latest research of SMU clinical psychologist Alicia Meuret, quoting her as an expert source.

The article, “For better talk therapy, try taking a nap,” published Nov. 28.

Meuret is director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU, with expertise in discussing the differences between fear and anxiety and when each is helpful and adaptive and when they are harmful and interfere with our lives.

An associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Division at the SMU Department of Psychology, Meuret received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg based on her doctoral work conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University and the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders, biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury.

The article “For better talk therapy, try taking a nap,” cites new findings from Meuret’s research, which found patients undergoing exposure therapy for anxiety fared better when sessions were held in the morning when levels of the helpful natural hormone cortisone are higher in the brain.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Andrea Petersen
Wall Street Journal
New tweaks are improving the age-old practice of talk therapy.

Doing therapy in the morning, taking a nap afterward or adding a medication that enhances learning are just a few of the methods scientists are discovering that can make cognitive behavioral therapy work better.

CBT, which involves changing dysfunctional patterns of thoughts and behaviors, is one of the most well-researched and effective treatments for a range of mental health issues, including anxiety disorders, depression and eating disorders.

But about a quarter to half of people with depression and anxiety don’t get significant relief after a course of CBT, which usually consists of about 12 to 15 weekly sessions. Some patients find the treatment time-consuming and difficult. Anywhere from 15% to 30% of people who begin it don’t finish, says David H. Barlow, founder of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. “There’s still plenty of room for improvement,” he says.

A study published in September in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology that involved 24 patients with anxiety disorders found that therapy appointments earlier in the day were more effective than those later in the day.

In the study, subjects—who all had panic disorder with agoraphobia (fear of situations where escape may be difficult)—were treated with exposure therapy, a common component of CBT: They repeatedly confronted situations they feared, such as being in elevators or crowds. Subjects with sessions early in the day reported less severe anxiety symptoms at their next session than those who had sessions later in the day.

The researchers found that higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol that naturally occur in the morning were responsible for at least part of the benefit of the earlier sessions. “Acute boosts of cortisol can actually facilitate learning,” says Alicia E. Meuret, associate professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University and lead author of the study.

Read the full story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, Lavanya Bhaskara, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Learning & Education Mind & Brain

Psychotherapy sessions are best in the morning when levels of helpful hormone are high

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 3, 2016

New study found patients with anxiety, phobias and fears showed greater improvement from therapy that was scheduled in the morning, when levels of cortisol — a naturally occurring hormone — test higher.

Patients make more progress toward overcoming anxiety, fears and phobias when their therapy sessions are scheduled in the morning, new research suggests.

The study found that morning sessions helped psychotherapy patients overcome their panic and anxiety and phobic avoidance better, in part, because levels of cortisol — a naturally occurring hormone — are at their highest then, said clinical psychologist Alicia E. Meuret, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

“The hormone cortisol is thought to facilitate fear extinction in certain therapeutic situations,” said Meuret, lead author on the research. “Drugs to enhance fear extinction are being investigated, but they can be difficult to administer and have yielded mixed results. The findings of our study promote taking advantage of two simple and naturally occurring agents – our own cortisol and time of day.”

The findings were reported in the article “Timing matters: Endogenous cortisol mediates benefits from early-day psychotherapy” in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Co-authors from the SMU Department of Psychology are David Rosenfield, Lavanya Bhaskara and Thomas Ritz. Co-authors from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan are Richard Auchus, Israel Liberzon, and James L. Abelson.

The study taps into research that anxiety and phobias are best treated by learning corrective information. Patients with anxiety and phobic disorders will overestimate the threat that a sensation or situation can cause. But by direct exposure, a patient learns that the likelihood of an expected catastrophe is very low.

“For example, a patient may think that standing in an elevator could cause him or her to lose control or faint, suffocate, or may create physical symptoms that would be intolerable,” Meuret said. “By having them stand in an elevator for a prolonged time, the patient learns that their feared outcome does not occur, despite high levels of anxiety. We call this corrective learning.”

However, since not all patients benefit equally from exposure therapy, researchers seek to identify ways to enhance corrective learning. To date, no simple way to augment fear extinction has been established.

The hormone cortisol is thought to help the extinction of fear. It appears to suppress the fear memory established by earlier distressing encounters while at the same time helping a patient better absorb and remember the new corrective information.

“In a prior study, we have shown that higher levels of cortisol during and in anticipation of exposure facilitate corrective learning,” said Meuret, an associate professor in the SMU Psychology Department and director of the SMU Anxiety and Depression Research Center in the Clinical Psychology Division of the department. “We also know that cortisol is higher early in the day. But we did not know whether cortisol would act as a mediator between time of day and therapeutic gains. This is what our study investigated.”

Exposure therapy in general resulted in significant improvements
Participants in the study were 24 people diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia, which is a fear of public places where a person feels panicked, trapped or helpless.

For the study, participants underwent a standard psychotherapeutic treatment of “exposure therapy,” in which patients are exposed to situations that can typically induce their panic or fear with the goal that repeated exposure can help diminish a disabling fear response over time.

Patients received weekly sessions over three weeks, each lasting, on average, 40 minutes. Exposure situations included tall buildings, highways and overpasses, enclosed places such as elevators, supermarkets, movie theaters, and public transportation such as subways and intercity trains and boats. In addition, levels of cortisol were measured at various times during each exposure session by swabbing inside the mouth for saliva.

In the session following exposure, the researchers measured patients’ appraisals of the threats, their avoidance behavior, how much control they perceived themselves as having, and the severity of their panic symptoms.

Assessing the results from those measurements, the researchers found the exposure therapy in general resulted in significant improvements in all measures over all time periods.

Biggest gains after sessions that started earlier in the day
However, patients made the biggest gains in overcoming their fears after the sessions that started earlier in the day. At the next session, patients reported less severe symptoms for threat misappraisal, avoidance behaviors and panic symptom severity. They also perceived greater control over their panic symptoms.

“Notably, higher cortisol was related to greater reductions in threat appraisal, perceived control and panic symptom severity at the next session,” Meuret said, “and that was the case over-and-above the effects of time-of-day, with large effect sizes.”

That finding suggests that cortisol accounts for some of the therapeutic effects associated with time-of-day, she said.

Because cortisol levels are generally higher in the morning, the authors speculate that higher cortisol levels may aid extinction learning, and contribute to enhanced early-day benefits of exposure sessions through such a mechanism.

However, Meuret cautioned that the precise mechanism by which cortisol enhances the effectiveness of morning exposure sessions remains unclear and can’t be directly addressed from the data in this study. The sample size of the study was small and findings need to be confirmed independently in larger studies, she said.

Meuret and her team suspect additional mechanisms are at play to explain the time-of-day effect. Other factors could include memory and learning and the body’s natural circadian rhythm, quantity and quality of sleep, attention control, and interactions between those factors and others. — Margaret Allen, SMU

Follow SMU Research on Twitter, @smuresearch.

For more SMU research see www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information, www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, Lavanya Bhaskara, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news

$2 million NIH grant to help team from SMU and U-Maryland develop pediatric asthma monitor

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 3, 2015

Goal is to create wearable device that helps pediatric patients avoid asthma attacks

Two SMU psychology professors working with University of Maryland engineers have been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant in October that will bring nearly $2 million to their joint project to create a wearable device for pediatric asthma patients that helps them avoid asthma triggers.

The asthma device will monitor air quality (including pollen levels and temperature), carbon dioxide levels in the blood, physical activity, breathing, emotional states and other stimuli to identify each patient’s individual asthma triggers and alert them when conditions are ripe for an attack. The concept is similar to the glucose monitor that alerts diabetes patients when their blood sugar is low, but it also includes much more complex monitoring of the patients’ environment.

The device’s current iteration is a portable unit, but the Maryland team is miniaturizing it so that it can be worn as a vest.

SMU psychology professors Alicia E. Meuret and Thomas Ritz, have teamed up with University of Maryland Center for Advanced Sensor Technology professors Yordan Kostov, Xudong Ge and Govind Rao, which provides a natural extension of each team’s research.

“Most of my early research has been developing a treatment that addresses hyperventilation using portable CO2 measurement devices, and teaching patients who suffer from panic disorders to normalize their CO2 levels and stop hyperventilating,” said Meuret, an associate professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology. “The colleagues at University of Maryland contacted me because they wanted to use one of the refined devices as a therapeutic measure, and the partnership grew from there.”

One eventual goal for the academic partnership is for the device to provide Meuret’s treatment instructions to patients during an attack so they can more quickly recover.

How patients perceive asthma triggers and how they can better manage them has been Ritz’ major research interest. He says 25 percent to 30 percent of patients have asthma symptoms triggered by emotional stimuli, which can be demonstrated by experiments with mood induction.

“That percentage is clinically significant,” Ritz says. “It’s a large endeavor with researchers from across the United States working on it and exchanging experience to develop their projects further.”

While the Maryland team works on the hardware for the project — and other research teams across the country work on the software — SMU’s Ritz and Meuret are working on the psychology and the clinical testing of the device with patients. Starting in January, the pair will conduct tests where students wearing the sensors change their breathing systematically or watch mood-inducing stimuli, such as sad, frightening or joyful movie clips.

Other tests of the environmental sensors will be done with adolescent asthma patients’ daily life. This will generate the data that will make the device’s components eventually run smoothly.

The SMU allotment of the NIH grant’s funds is $540,737. The University of Maryland team also includes environmental engineering researchers Chris Hennigan and electrical engineering researchers Ryan Robucci and Nilanjan Banerjee. — Kenny Ryan

Follow SMUResearch.com on twitter at @smuresearch.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Culture, Society & Family Health & Medicine Learning & Education Mind & Brain Videos

Asthma patients reduce symptoms, improve lung function with shallow breaths, more CO2

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 3, 2014

New study finds taking deep breaths doesn’t work; sufferers pairing biofeedback with shallow breaths increased carbon dioxide and improved long-term lung health

Asthma patients taught to habitually resist the urge to take deep breaths when experiencing symptoms were rewarded with fewer symptoms and healthier lung function, according to a new study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The findings are from a large clinical trial funded with a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

The results suggest asthma patients using behavioral therapy in conjunction with their daily asthma medicine can improve their lung health over the long-term, said principal investigators Thomas Ritz and Alicia E. Meuret, both SMU clinical psychologists.

Also, sufferers may potentially reduce their dependence on emergency medication, such as rescue inhalers, the researchers said.

SMU behavioral psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret helps a patient learn shallow breathing with biofeedback to relieve symptoms of air hunger. (Photo: SMU) — SMU clinical psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret helps a patient learn shallow breathing with biofeedback to relieve symptoms of air hunger. (Photo: SMU)

Asthma can be a life-threatening disease if not managed properly, according to the American Lung Association. Nearly 26 million Americans have asthma, says ALA.

One of the most common chronic disorders in childhood, asthma is the third leading cause of hospitalization among children under 15, ALA says.

Asthma attacks typically provoke sufferers to gulp air and take deep breaths to relieve the frightening fear of asphyxiation, said Ritz and Meuret. In addition, asthma sufferers tend to breathe too much even when not experiencing symptoms.

Thomas Ritz, psychology, SMU, biofeedback, asthma

Candace Walkington, SMU, algebra, teaching

Thomas Coan, SMU, neutrinos, ManeFrame, NOvA, Fermilab, physics

Usain Bolt, Weyand, SMU, elite sprinters, Clark, punch

Dark matter, Jodi Cooley, SMU, CDMS, SNOLAB

Marital tension, Kouros, SMU, psychology, children

But Ritz, Meuret and their co-authors found with their research that deep breathing is exactly the wrong thing to do.

For their study, one group of asthma patients used biofeedback to monitor their breathing for reassurance they were getting sufficient oxygen. The patients practiced shallower, shorter breaths to increase their intake of carbon dioxide, CO2. A second group also practiced slower breathing, but without biofeedback.

“This study goes to the heart of hyperventilation — which is deep, rapid breathing that causes a drop in CO2 gas in the blood. That makes a person feel dizzy and short of breath,” Ritz said. “Patients in our study increased CO2 and reduced their symptoms. And over a six-month period we saw in the biofeedback group an actual improvement in the physiology of their lungs.”

The researchers reported their findings in the pulmonology medical journal Chest, “Controlling asthma by training of capnometry-assisted hypoventilation vs. slow breathing.” Ritz is a professor and Mueret an associate professor in the Department of Psychology in SMU’s Dedman College.

Shallow breathing method is counterintuitive
“When people hyperventilate, there is something very strange happening,” Meuret said. “In essence they are taking in too much air. But the sensation that they get is shortness of breath, choking, air hunger, as if they’re not getting enough air. It’s almost like a biological system error.”

Onlookers commonly give the advice, “Take a deep breath.” But that’s just the opposite of what a struggling breather should do.

“They don’t need any more oxygen,” Meuret said. “But consciously or not, people start to take deeper breaths — and that makes the symptoms worse.”

Among the study’s 120 patients who used the brief, four-week biofeedback therapy to boost their CO2, the researchers found that of 21 clinical indices of pathology more than 80 percent resulted in significant reductions. The researchers saw improvement in asthma symptoms and control, better lung function, reduced oversensitivity of the airways and less use of reliever medication, as well as improvement in physiology and the pathology of the airways.

Biofeedback method tested against tough scientific control group
The biological-behavioral treatment method, called Capnometry-Assisted Breathing Training, or CART for short, was developed by Meuret. Previous randomized controlled studies by Meuret found CART reduced symptoms of panic and hyperventilation in patients with panic and anxiety.

The handheld capnometer, equipped with a digital readout, enables patients via biofeedback to track changes in their CO2 when they alter their breathing during breathing training exercises and instruction sessions. Capnometers are medical devices that can only be purchased by a health care provider.

For the current SMU study, CART patients were compared to a randomized control group that also received a breathing treatment — specifically, slower breathing, or SLOW for short.

Patients in the SLOW group used the CART device also for their home exercises to validate they were breathing slower. The only difference between the CART and SLOW groups was that CART patients received biofeedback about their CO2.

“We tested CART against the toughest scientific control we could devise — another breathing treatment, where patients receive the same amount of attention from their therapist, use equipment to help them alter their breathing, are primed to pay attention to their own asthma management, and receive encouragement to take their medicine more regularly,” Ritz said.

CART and SLOW patients both improved, but CART benefits were long-lasting
Patients in the study were from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, all of them medically diagnosed with asthma. Each patient’s asthma diagnosis was independently validated at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas by a methacholine airways stress test, a stringent diagnostic procedure to confirm patients met the criteria for asthma.

After four weeks of CART and SLOW training, asthma symptoms for both groups had improved, even when controlling for any change in medication intake.

However at follow up six months later, asthma symptoms for the SLOW control group had returned to higher levels.

“The follow-up period is often viewed as the moment of truth of how effective a treatment is,” said Meuret. “Once a patient doesn’t have to come to treatment, does the treatment continue to be beneficial? After four weeks, both treatments were beneficial, but CART was superior — and showed even greater improvements beyond that.”

CART patients also became less distressed about the methacholine test, indicating higher distress tolerance to their symptoms, Ritz said.

In addition, during treatment, the airways of CART patients widened during treatment in the lab, according to measurements taken by a forced oscillation technique. That was a positive development that allowed patients to breathe easier. Airways in the SLOW group actually narrowed a bit, said Ritz. Nevertheless, SLOW resulted in significant improvement also.

“The long-term goal of the CART research is to test whether we can achieve the same improvements with occasional intervals of capnometer feedback training, or ideally test whether shallow breathing in itself will achieve the same stable increases in CO2,” said the researchers.

CART not a relaxation technique
CART is not relaxation training. Quite the opposite.

“It’s actually very, very, very unrelaxing when patients start,” Meuret said.

For patients with low CO2 in particular, the process of breathing slow and shallow to increase the CO2 level — even just slightly — tends to trigger extreme air hunger.

“Only by reassuring themselves that the symptoms are caused by low CO2 and not low oxygen, they can keep on going,” Meuret said. “And that’s even more difficult for asthmatics than anxious patients who have a normal lung function.”

Patients initially want to take a deep breath, she said. “But I reassure them not to, telling them to ‘Look at the CART device, look at their oxygen, it’s at 100 percent, it can’t get any higher.’”

CART therapy can improve quality of life, reduce health dangers
“The goal is to reduce the need of the emergency medication,” Ritz said. “It’s a quality of life issue.”

Patients with asthma symptoms miss out on sports, limit their physical activity, or are kept out of school P.E. and other activities. They can also become depressed and anxious, and get over-sensitive to sensations.

“The more you can reduce these symptoms the more the person can take part in daily life like a normal person,” Ritz said.

Physiologically, symptoms are also an indicator the asthma patient may have more inflammation and constriction.

While there’s always the risk an attack may be fatal, Ritz said, lesser outcomes are serious also. It’s recommended to intervene in asthma early, ideally during childhood, because the airways become reshaped.

“The longer they’re inflamed, the thicker the tissue of the airways get and the narrower the airways and the less they can relax,” he said.

Other co-authors on the study were SMU psychologist David Rosenfield, graduate student Ashton M. Steele, and physician Mark W. Millard, Baylor University Medical Center Dallas. — Margaret Allen

Follow SMUResearch.com on twitter at @smuresearch.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, Ashton M. Steele, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

Oprah.com: Stress Myths — Debunked!

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 9, 2013

Health journalist Corrie Pikul wrote about the groundbreaking panic and anxiety research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia Meuret and Dr. Thomas Ritz in a Jan. 7 post on Oprah.com.

The article, “Stress Myths—Debunked!,” cites the startling findings of Meuret’s anxiety research, which has found that the standard advice to “take a deep breath” actually makes such situations worse.

Read the full post.

EXCERPT:

By Corrie Pikul
Oprah.com
[ … ] “Taking deep, slow breaths can help you calm down when you’re feeling panicked and overwhelmed.”

It makes sense that when you’re short of breath, you should try to compensate with a little extra oxygen, right? The problem is that when you are experiencing an intensely trying situation—waiting to hear the results of a serious medical test, during severe turbulence on an airplane, or when you slice your thumb with a bread knife just as your brunch guests pull into the driveway—you’re probably already taking in too much oxygen and could be at risk of hyperventilating, says Alicia Esperanza Meuret, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In her research on patients who suffer from panic disorders and asthma, Meuret has found that a more effective way to calm down is to take shallow, regular and slow breaths through the nose (not the mouth, which makes it too easy to suck more air than you actually need). “Imagine a beach where the water is sliding in and out in time with your breath,” she says. This may feel slightly uncomfortable at first, as you battle the impulse to fill your lungs, but Meuret says you should start to feel more relaxed after practicing a few times.

Read the full post.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

Prevention: Anxiety Is Draining Your Brain, But It Doesn’t Have To

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 22, 2012

Health journalist Markham Heid wrote about the groundbreaking panic and anxiety research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia Meuret and Dr. Thomas Ritz in the June 2012 issue of Prevention magazine.

The article “Anxiety Is Draining Your Brain, But It Doesn’t Have To” cites the startling findings of Meuret’s anxiety research, which has found that the standard advice to “take a deep breath” actually makes such situations worse.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Markham Heid
Prevention

How’s this for unfair: Women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety disorders than men are, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. And to top it off, new research finds that those frequent bouts of worrying may be making it hard for your brain to complete even the simplest of tasks.

It’s no secret that feeling anxious isn’t exactly enjoyable, but Michigan State University researchers wanted to find out exactly what goes on inside an anxious brain. They asked 149 men and women who suffer from anxiety to complete a series of puzzles, while tracking the electrical activity in their brains.

The results: Although men and women performed equally well on the simple puzzles, women’s brains were much more active. Later, when the puzzles became more difficult, the women performed worse than their male counterparts.

Why? The researchers speculate that the energy used up on simple tasks robbed the anxious women of the brainpower needed to complete more difficult tasks. In other words, although your brain is technically an organ, it mimics a muscle in that it can be worn down by too much work. And, like carrying around an extra 10-pound weight, anxiety makes everything your brain does more difficult.

But not to worry; you can learn to get a handle on your anxiety with a few easy tips:

Control your breathing. Although you’ve probably been told to breathe deeply when trying to calm down, the opposite is actually true, says Alicia Meuret, PhD, a psychologist and anxiety specialist at Southern Methodist University. “Deep breaths worsen hyperventilation and anxiety-associated symptoms such as shortness of breath and a racing heart,” she says. So how should you breathe? Slowly and shallowly, Dr. Meuret recommends. Try to take in as little air as possible, keeping in the oxygen for a second or two before exhaling, she advises. This will keep your body’s supply of circulating carbon dioxide at its proper level, which will calm you down, she says. […]

Read the full story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Culture, Society & Family Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

Baylor Innovations: Don’t Panic, New Research Shows That Panic Attacks Are Not As Spontaneous As Once Thought

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date May 7, 2012

Baylor Innovations, the quarterly magazine of Baylor Health Care System, featured the groundbreaking panic attack research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia E. Meuret, Dr. David Rosenfield and Dr. Thomas Ritz.

The Spring 2012 article by health and science writer Mark Cantrell, titled “Don’t Panic: New Research Shows That Panic Attacks Are Not As Spontaneous As Once Thought” details the startling findings of Meuret’s newest published study showing significant physiological instability in advance of so-called out-of-the-blue panic attacks.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Mark Cantrell
Baylor Innovations
YOUR HANDS ARE SHAKING. YOUR KNEES FEEL WEAK. You’re sweating, your heart is pounding like a jackhammer and you feel you can’t catch your breath. You’re having a panic attack, and it seems to have struck without warning.

But did it? A new study conducted at Southern Methodist University in Dallas suggests that panic attacks are actually telegraphed ahead of time by certain physiological changes.

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) defines a panic attack as a discrete period of intense fear and discomfort in which symptoms such as a racing heart, shortness of breath or dizziness develop suddenly and reach a peak in about 10 minutes.

Those experiencing an attack may believe they’re having a heart attack or stroke. But one of the most distressing things about panic attacks is that they often seem to have no actual cause.

Out of Nowhere?
“Unexpected attacks – as compared to those triggered by certain situations such as flying, being in a closed space or speaking in public – are thought to occur spontaneously, in absence of internal signals or situational triggers,” explains Alicia Meuret, Ph.D., an associate professor at Southern Methodist University and chief investigator of the study.

“The literature on how the body reacts when patients who are prone to them have an unexpected attack is very limited, due to the unexpectedness of the phenomenon. To date we do not know what triggers these attacks, but it is likely that the causes are multifactorial.”

For the study, Dr. Meuret enlisted 43 people with a history of panic attacks to wear portable monitors that captured changes in respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions.

The device was worn in a waist pack, with sensors attached at various points. Elastic bands around the chest and abdomen measured breathing rate, depth and variability.

Electrodes kept track of patients’ cardiac and sweat gland activity, while accelerometers measured body movement. Participants were instructed to press a “panic button” at the moment they felt the onset of an attack, and to write down the symptoms they were feeling at the time.

Read the full story.

Follow SMU Research on Twitter, @smuresearch.

For more SMU research see www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information, www.smu.edu.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

HHS Healthbeat: Predicting Panic Attacks

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 22, 2011

Nicholas Garlow with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services created a podcast about the groundbreaking panic attack research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia Meuret, Dr. David Rosenfield and Dr. Thomas Ritz.

The Sept. 22 podcast “Predicting Panic Attacks” details the startling findings of Meuret’s newest published study showing significant physiological instability in advance of so-called out-of-the-blue panic attacks.

Read the text.

Listen to the podcast.

EXCERPT:

By Nicholas Garlow
HHS Healthbeat
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I???m Nicholas Garlow with HHS HealthBeat.

Your body may give you hints that you’re going to have a panic attack, a short period of intense fear and discomfort. Forty-three panic attack sufferers carried portable recorders that measured respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions, over 2,000 hours.

Alice Meuret is at Southern Methodist University.

“Most of the physiological changes took place long before the patients reported that what they felt was a panic attack.” (10 seconds)

To combat attacks, she suggests:

“Changing respiration when noticing symptoms could be effective in avoiding a full blown panic attack. One should try to breathe as little air as possible, to reverse hyperventilation.’ (14 seconds)

Read the text.

Listen to the podcast.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

The Wall Street Journal: Seeing Signs of a Panic Attack Before One Happens

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 21, 2011

Science journalist Ann Lukits wrote about the groundbreaking panic attack research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia Meuret, Dr. David Rosenfield and Dr. Thomas Ritz in the The Wall Street Journal‘s Research Report.

The Sept. 20 article “Seeing Signs of a Panic Attack Before One Happens” details the startling findings of Meuret’s newest published study showing significant physiological instability in advance of so-called out-of-the-blue panic attacks.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Ann Lukits
The Wall Street Journal
Panic attacks that appeared to strike out of the blue were preceded for almost an hour by significant physiological changes that went undetected by research subjects in a study published in Biological Psychiatry. Panic attacks are intense episodes of terror lasting about 10 minutes that can be unexpected or induced by specific triggers. The disorder, which affects about six million American adults, is twice as common in women as men, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Researchers in Texas used portable monitors to record minute-by-minute physiological changes in 43 patients age 23 to 62 with moderate-to-severe panic disorder. Eight indicators, including heart rate, respiration, and skin conductance, an indication of a psychological or physiological reaction to stimuli, were measured during two 24-hour sessions. Patients pressed an event marker when a panic attack occurred and noted the start time. Thirteen attacks averaging eight minutes in length were reported.

Read the full story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

The Atlantic: The Upside of a Panic Attack: The Worst Is Over Before You Know It

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 16, 2011

Science journalist Hans Villarica wrote about the groundbreaking panic attack research of SMU psychologists Dr. Alicia Meuret, Dr. David Rosenfield and Dr. Thomas Ritz in the The Atlantic.

The Sept. 16 article “The Upside of a Panic Attack: The Worst Is Over Before You Know It” details the startling findings of Meuret’s newest published study showing significant physiological instability in advance of so-called out-of-the-blue panic attacks.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Hans Villarica
The Atlantic
There are plenty of misperceptions about panic attacks. People often tell the anxiety ridden to “take a deep breath,” for instance, when they may actually already be taking too much oxygen in by hyperventilating. Indeed, what experts say is that breathing should instead be slow, shallow, and regular, so that a constant, very small stream of air comes in through the nose. Paper bags are optional too, as cupped hands do the trick just as well.

New research aims to debunk another myth: Panic attacks occur completely out of the blue. Though those who panic don’t realize it, their attacks are in fact foreshadowed by minute physiological signals, according to a study led by Southern Methodist University’s Alicia Meuret in the journal Biological Psychiatry. “The hour before panic onset was marked by subtle but significant waves of changes in patient’s breathing and cardiac activity, not just the moment of onset of the attack or even during the attack,” she says. “Our analysis provided us with a whole different pattern.”

That pattern goes like this: Physiological instabilities occur in repeated bouts or waves and are often initiated by heart rate accelerations, followed by changes in breathing and carbon dioxide levels. Ultimately, breathing becomes much shallower, causing a spike in carbon dioxide levels that lead to symptoms that could no longer escape the attention of those who panic. More precisely, they experience terrifying sensations, such as dizziness, air hunger, and shortness of breath.

Read the full story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Health & Medicine Mind & Brain SMU In The News Student researchers

Patch: Panic Attack — It May Not Be a Sneak Attack After All

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 8, 2011

The nationally distributed online community news service Patch.com has covered the research of SMU psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret showing panic attacks that seem to strike out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all.

Meuret’s study found significant physiological instability one hour before patients reported feeling a panic attack. The findings suggest potentially new treatments for panic, and re-examination of other “unexpected” medical problems, including seizures, strokes and manic episodes, says Meuret, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology. She was lead researcher on the study. Dr. David Rosenfield, an associate professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology, was lead statistician.

They reported the results in the journal Biological Psychiatry in the article “Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?”

Read the full story.

The online community news service Patch has covered the research of SMU psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret, which found that panic attacks that seem to strike out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all.

EXCERPT:

By Treacy Colbert
Patch.com
It comes on suddenly — your body ambushes you with dizziness, nausea, sweat, a racing pulse and, worst of all, an impending sense of doom. It’s a panic attack, and while it feels like a sneak attack to most sufferers, a new study shows that many people may actually experience warning signs that simply go undetected.

Sufferers describe symptoms such as pounding heart, dizziness, nausea, a sense of impending doom, sweating, shaking, and shortness of breath, among others.

Not all panic attacks are unexpected. A person who has an intense fear of enclosed spaces or of flying on an airplane can expect that being in a packed elevator or on a flight will cue a panic attack. However, those who suffer from seemingly unpredictable panic attacks often report that the fear of having another random attack can be paralyzing. Sufferers frequently alter their lifestyle and even isolate themselves out of fear that an attack will come on without warning.

But new research from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas suggests that the body produces warning signs of an impending panic attack as early as an hour beforehand. Significantly, the study reveals that sufferers were unaware of these advance signals. They report their attack as a sudden, out-of-the-blue experience???but don’t seem to sense the physical changes that were gathering and leading up to the full-blown sense of panic.

In the study, researchers monitored physiological changes in 43 patients who suffer from panic disorder. Electrodes and sensors attached to their bodies measured their respiration, analyzing fast or irregular breathing, as well as heart rate, evidence of sweating, and other physiological signs. Participants in the study wore the monitors for 24 hours on two occasions, and a total of 1,960 hours of data was collected.

During this time participants experienced 13 unexpected panic attacks. However, the data analysis revealed that symptoms such as hyperventilating accumulated and gathered prior to the attack but that the panic attack sufferers did not pick up on these signals.

“It is hard to control something that one does not sense,” noted Alicia Meuret, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University and lead author of the study.

Read the full story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

Medscape: Panic Attacks Don’t Come Out of the Blue After All

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 4, 2011

Medscape, the medical blog serving physicians and the healthcare community, has covered the research of SMU psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret showing panic attacks that seem to strike out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all.

They reported the results in the journal Biological Psychiatry in the article “Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?”

Full article available with free registration with Medscape.

EXCERPT:

By Megan Brooks
Medscape
Panic attacks do not come “out of the blue” but are preceded by physiological changes similar to those that precede seizures, stroke, and even manic episodes, a new study suggests.

“There is reason to believe that waves of physiological instability occur for a substantial period of time before the attack is reported by patients,” Alicia E. Meuret, PhD, an assistant professor from the Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas, who led the study, told Medscape Medical News.

The finding may have relevance for other medical disorders where symptoms seemingly happen “out of the blue,” such as seizures, strokes, and even manic episodes, the researchers note.

There is speculation that panic attacks are triggered by marked changes in physiology, in particular breathing, Dr. Meuret explained. However, until now, very little is known on the physiological functioning of those with panic attacks outside the laboratory.

In the current study, 43 patients with panic disorder underwent repeated 24-hour ambulatory monitoring of various physiological indices, including respiration, heart rate, and skin conductance level. During 1960 hours of monitoring, 13 natural panic attacks were recorded.

“We managed to capture spontaneously occurring attacks in these recordings, which we were able to examine closer. The study marks the first to gain an in-depth look into what occurs in early stages before a panic attack occurs,” Dr. Meuret said. The investigators specifically analyzed the 60 minutes before panic onset and during the panic attack.

Full article available with free registration with Medscape.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine SMU In The News

UPI: Panic attacks may be predictable

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 4, 2011

The wire service UPI has covered the research of SMU psychologist Dr. Alicia Meuret showing panic attacks that seem to strike out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all.

They reported the results in the journal Biological Psychiatry in the article “Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?“

Read the full wire story.

EXCERPT:

UPI
DALLAS, July 27 (UPI) — Panic attacks that seem to strike out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all, U.S. researchers say.

Lead researcher Alicia E. Meuret, a psychologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says the study is based on 24-hour monitoring of panic sufferers while they went about their daily activities. Portable recorders captured changes in respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions, Meuret says.

The researchers captured panic attacks as they occurred and discovered waves of significant physiological instability for at least 60 minutes before patients’ awareness of the panic attacks, Meuret says.

Read the full wire story.

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Economics & Statistics Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Technology Videos

Out-of-the-blue panic attacks aren’t without warning; data show subtle changes before patients’ aware of attack

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 26, 2011

Panic attacks that seem to strike sufferers out-of-the-blue are not without warning after all, according to new research.

A study based on 24-hour monitoring of panic sufferers while they went about their daily activities captured panic attacks as they happened and discovered waves of significant physiological instability for at least 60 minutes before patients’ awareness of the panic attacks, said psychologist Alicia E. Meuret at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In a rare study in which patients were monitored around-the-clock, portable recorders captured changes in respiration, heart rate and other bodily functions, said Meuret, lead researcher on the study.

The new findings suggest sufferers of panic attacks may be highly sensitive to — but unaware of — an accumulating pattern of subtle physiological instabilities that occur before an attack, Meuret said.

Monitoring data also showed patients were hyperventilating on a chronic basis.

Simulated panic sufferer and monitoring equipment. (Photo: SMU)

“The results were just amazing,” Meuret said. “We found that in this hour preceding naturally occurring panic attacks, there was a lot of physiological instability. These significant physiological instabilities were not present during other times when the patient wasn’t about to have a panic attack.”

It is notable that patients reported the attacks as unexpected, lacking awareness of either the coming attack or their changing physiology.

“The changes don’t seem to enter the patient’s awareness,” Meuret said. “What they report is what happens at the end of the 60 minutes — that they’re having an out-of-the blue panic attack with a lot of intense physical sensations. We had expected the majority of the physiological activation would occur during and following the onset of the panic attack. But what we actually found was very little additional physiological change at that time.”

Unexpected attacks have been a mystery; little research to explain them
The diagnostic standard for psychological disorders, the DSM-IV, defines panic attacks as either expected or unexpected.

Those that are expected, or cued, occur when a patient feels an attack is likely, such as in closed spaces, while driving or in a crowded place.

“But in an unexpected panic attack, the patient reports the attack to occur out-of-the-blue,” Meuret said. “They would say they were sitting watching TV when they were suddenly hit by a rush of symptoms, and there wasn’t anything that made it predictable.”

To sufferers and researchers alike, the attacks are a mystery.

Change-point analysis uncovered physiological instabilities one hour before attacks
Meuret and her colleagues discovered the significant physiological instabilities using change-point analysis, a statistical method that searches for points when changes occur in a “process” over time.

“This analysis allowed us to search through patients’ physiological data recorded in the hour before the onset of their panic attacks to determine if there were points at which the signals changed significantly,” said psychologist David Rosenfield of SMU, lead statistician on the project.

The study is significant not only for panic disorder, but also for other medical problems where symptoms and events have seemingly “out-of-the blue” onsets, such as seizures, strokes and even manic episodes.

“I think this method and study will ultimately help detect what’s going on before these unexpected events and help determine how to prevent them,” Meuret said. “If we know what’s happening before the event, it’s easier to treat it.”

Meuret, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, reported the results in the journal Biological Psychiatry in the article “Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously?” Rosenfield is an associate professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology.

A multi-disciplinary collaboration, other authors on the study were psychologist Thomas Ritz, SMU Department of Psychology; psychologist Frank H. Wilhelm, University of Salzburg, Austria; electrical engineer Enlu Zhou, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and psychologist Ansgar Conrad and psychiatrist Walton T. Roth, both of Stanford University.

Meuret discusses the research in an SMU Research youtube video.

Subtle physical changes impact panic sufferers more severely
People with panic disorder probably won’t be surprised by the results, Meuret said.

By definition, the majority of the 13 symptoms of panic attack are physiological: shortness of breath, heart racing, dizziness, chest pain, sweating, hot flashes, trembling, choking, nausea and numbness. Only three are psychological: feeling of unreality, fear of losing control and fear of dying.

“Most patients obviously feel that there must be something going on physically,” Meuret said. “They worry they’re having a heart attack, suffocating or going to pass out. Our data doesn’t indicate there’s something inherently wrong with them physically, neither when they are at rest nor during panic. The fluctuations that we discovered are not extreme; they are subtle. But they seem to build up and may result in a notion that something catastrophic is going on.”

Notably, the researchers found that patients’ carbon dioxide, or C02, levels were in an abnormally low range, indicating the patients were chronically hyperventilating. These levels rose significantly shortly before panic onset and correlated with reports of anxiety, fear of dying and chest pain.

“It has been speculated, but never verified with data recordings in daily life, that increases in CO2 cause feelings of suffocation and can be panic triggers,” Meuret said.

Fanny pack monitor tracked physiological changes before, during and after attacks
To capture the physiological data, 43 patients wore the monitoring devices for 24 hours on two separate occasions. The researchers collected 1,960 hours of ambulatory monitoring data, including 13 unexpected panic attacks.

Participants, all of whom suffer from panic disorder, were each outfitted with an array of electrodes and sensors attached to various parts of their bodies.

The ambulatory monitoring device was toted in a small waist pack the patients wore. Also included was a portable capnometer to measure CO2 collected from exhaled breath. The physiological responses were recorded continuously as digital data in a time series.

Each monitoring pack included a “panic button.” Patients were instructed to press the button if they had an attack and to write down their symptoms. By triggering the panic button, patients inserted a marker into the time-series data, marking the moment the attack began.

The sensors measured eight physiological indices, including changes in respiration, such as how deep, fast or irregular people were breathing; cardiac activity; and evidence of sweating.

Data analysis found strikingly significant changes in the hour before attacks
From the nearly 2,000 hours of data, the change-point analysis program allowed the researchers to slice out 70-minute periods around each of the 13 panic attacks — from one hour before onset until 10 minutes after the attacks began.

For each index, the program checked for any significant change in the signal that remained stable over a specified period of time.

Those results were collapsed across all 13 panic attacks, with minute-by-minute averages. The information was then compared to a 70-minute control period randomly chosen during non-panic periods.

“We found 15 subtle but significant changes an hour before the onset of the panic attacks that followed a logical physiological pattern. These weren’t present during the non-panic period,” Meuret said.

“Why they occurred, we don’t know. We also can’t say necessarily they were causal for the panic attacks. But the changes were strikingly and significantly different to what was observed in the non-panic control period,” she said.

Findings prompt look at “panic” definition and treatment
The study’s results invite a reconsideration of the DSM diagnostic definition that separates “expected” from “unexpected” attacks, Meuret said.

Also, the study might explain why medication or interventions aimed at normalizing respiration for treating panic are effective, she said. Medication generally buffers arousal, keeping it low and regular, thereby preventing unexpected panic attacks.

For psychological treatments such as Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), the results are more challenging. CBT requires a patient to focus on examining thoughts to prevent an attack.

“But a patient can’t work on something they don’t know is going to happen,” Meuret said.

New methodology can be universalized to other unexpected medical problems
The study’s use of change-point analysis can be applied to other medical issues. Traditional statistics are ineffective at analyzing such data, Meuret said, because they look only at level differences at pre-determined times and won’t find a signal for an unknown point.

“This study is a step toward more understanding and hopefully opening more doors for research on medical events that are difficult to predict. The hope is that we can then translate these findings into new therapies,” she said.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Beth and Russell Siegelman Foundation. — Margaret Allen

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, David Rosenfield, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Culture, Society & Family Earth & Climate Economics & Statistics Energy & Matter Fossils & Ruins Health & Medicine Learning & Education Mind & Brain Plants & Animals Researcher news Technology

2010 a year of advances for SMU scientific researchers at the vanguard of those helping civilization

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date December 21, 2010

From picking apart atomic particles at Switzerland’s CERN, to unraveling the mysterious past, to delving into the human psyche, SMU researchers are in the vanguard of those helping civilization understand more and live better.

With both public and private funding — and the assistance of their students — they are tackling such scientific and social problems as brain diseases, immigration, diabetes, evolution, volcanoes, panic disorders, childhood obesity, cancer, radiation, nuclear test monitoring, dark matter, the effects of drilling in the Barnett Shale, and the architecture of the universe.

The sun never sets on SMU research
Besides working in campus labs and within the Dallas-area community, SMU scientists conduct research throughout the world, including at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, and in Angola, the Canary Islands, Mongolia, Kenya, Italy, China, the Congo Basin, Ethiopia, Mexico, the Northern Mariana Islands and South Korea.

“Research at SMU is exciting and expanding,” says Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies James E. Quick, a professor in the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences. “Our projects cover a wide range of problems in basic and applied research, from the search for the Higgs particle at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN to the search for new approaches to treat serious diseases. The University looks forward to creating increasing opportunities for undergraduates to become involved as research expands at SMU.”

Funding from public and private sources
In 2009-10, SMU received $25.6 million in external funding for research, up from $16.5 million the previous year.

“Research is a business that cannot be grown without investment,” Quick says. “Funding that builds the research enterprise is an investment that will go on giving by enabling the University to attract more federal grants in future years.”

The funding came from public and private sources, including the National Science Foundation; the National Institutes of Health; the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Energy; the U.S. Geological Survey; Google.org; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Texas’ own Hogg Foundation for Mental Health; and the Texas Instruments Foundation.

Worldwide, the news media are covering SMU research. See some of the coverage. Browse a sample of the research:

CERN and the origin of our universe
Led by Physics Professor Ryszard Stroynowski, SMU physics researchers belong to the global consortium of scientists investigating the origins of our universe by monitoring high-speed sub-atomic particle collisions at CERN, the world’s largest physics experiment.

Compounds to fight neurodegenerative diseases

Synthetic organic chemist and Chemistry Professor Edward Biehl leads a team developing organic compounds for possible treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. Preliminary investigation of one compound found it was extremely potent as a strong, nontoxic neuroprotector in mice.

Hunting dark matter
Assistant Professor of Physics Jodi Cooley belongs to a high-profile international team of experimental particle physicists searching for elusive dark matter — believed to constitute the bulk of the matter in the universe — at an abandoned underground mine in Minnesota, and soon at an even deeper mine in Canada.

Robotic arms for injured war vets

Electrical Engineering Chairman and Professor Marc Christensen is director of a new $5.6 million center funded by the Department of Defense and industry. The center will develop for war veteran amputees a high-tech robotic arm with fiber-optic connectivity to the brain capable of “feeling” sensations.

Green energy from the Earth’s inner heat

The SMU Geothermal Laboratory, under Earth Sciences Professor David Blackwell, has identified and mapped U.S. geothermal resources capable of supplying a green source of commercial power generation, including resources that were much larger than expected under coal-rich West Virginia.

Exercise can be magic drug for depression and anxiety

Psychologist Jasper Smits, director of the Anxiety Research and Treatment Program at SMU, says exercise can help many people with depression and anxiety disorders and should be more widely prescribed by mental health care providers.

The traditional treatments of cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy don’t reach everyone who needs them, says Smits, an associate professor of psychology.

Virtual reality “dates” to prevent victimization

SMU psychologists Ernest Jouriles, Renee McDonald and Lorelei Simpson have partnered with SMU Guildhall in developing an interactive video gaming environment where women on virtual-reality dates can learn and practice assertiveness skills to prevent sexual victimization.

With assertive resistance training, young women have reduced how often they are sexually victimized, the psychologists say.

Controlled drug delivery agents for diabetes
Associate Chemistry Professor Brent Sumerlin leads a team of SMU chemistry researchers — including postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students — who fuse the fields of polymer, organic and biochemistries to develop novel materials with composite properties. Their research includes developing nano-scale polymer particles to deliver insulin to diabetics.

Sumerlin, associate professor of chemistry, was named a 2010-2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, which carries a $50,000 national award to support his research.

Human speed
An expert on the locomotion of humans and other terrestrial animals, Associate Professor of Applied Physiology and Biomechanics Peter Weyand has analyzed the biomechanics of world-class athletes Usain Bolt and Oscar Pistorius. His research targets the relationships between muscle function, metabolic energy expenditure, whole body mechanics and performance.

Weyand’s research also looks at why smaller people tire faster. Finding that they have to take more steps to cover the same distance or travel at the same speed, he and other scientists derived an equation that can be used to calculate the energetic cost of walking.

Pacific Ring of Fire volcano monitoring
An SMU team of earth scientists led by Professor and Research Dean James Quick works with the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire near Guam on the Northern Mariana Islands. Their research will help predict and anticipate hazards to the islands, the U.S. military and commercial jets.

The two-year, $250,000 project will use infrasound — in addition to more conventional seismic monitoring — to “listen” for signs a volcano is about to blow.

Reducing anxiety and asthma
A system of monitoring breathing to reduce CO2 intake is proving useful for reducing the pain of chronic asthma and panic disorder in separate studies by Associate Psychology Professor Thomas Ritz and Assistant Psychology Professor Alicia Meuret.

The two have developed the four-week program to teach asthmatics and those with panic disorder how to better control their condition by changing the way they breathe.

Breast Cancer community engagement
Assistant Psychology Professor Georita Friersen is working with African-American and Hispanic women in Dallas to address the quality-of-life issues they face surrounding health care, particularly during diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Friersen also examines health disparities regarding prevention and treatment of chronic diseases among medically underserved women and men.

Paleoclimate in humans’ first environment
Paleobotanist and Associate Earth Sciences Professor Bonnie Jacobs researches ancient Africa’s vegetation to better understand the environmental and ecological context in which our ancient human ancestors and other mammals evolved.

Jacobs is part of an international team of researchers who combine independent lines of evidence from various fossil and geochemical sources to reconstruct the prehistoric climate, landscape and ecosystems of Ethiopia in particular. She also identifies and prepares flora fossil discoveries for Ethiopia’s national museum.

Ice Age humans

Anthropology Professor David Meltzer explores the western Rockies of Colorado to understand the prehistoric Folsom hunters who adapted to high-elevation environments during the Ice Age.

Meltzer, a world-recognized expert on paleoIndians and early human migration from eastern continents to North America, was inducted into the National Academy of Scientists in 2009.

Understanding evolution
The research of paleontologist Alisa WInkler focuses on the systematics, paleobiogeography and paleoecology of fossil mammals, in particular rodents and rabbits.

Her study of prehistoric rodents in East Africa and Texas, such as the portion of jaw fossil pictured, is helping shed more light on human evolution.

Tags Alicia Meuret, Alisa J. WInkler, Bonnie F. Jacobs, Brent Sumerlin, David Blackwell, David Meltzer, Edward Biehl, Ernest Jouriles, Georita Friersen, James E. Quick, Jasper Smits, Jodi Cooley, Lorelei Simpson, Lorelei Simpson Rowe, Marc Christensen, Peter Weyand, Renee McDonald, Ryszard Stroynowski, Thomas Ritz

Health & Medicine Mind & Brain

Breathing technique can reduce frequency, severity of asthma attacks

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 14, 2009

Mueret10%2C-9-09%2Clr.jpg As the health care reform debate turns to cutting costs and improving treatment outcomes, two SMU professors are expanding a study that shows promise for reducing both the expense and suffering associated with chronic asthma.

Thomas Ritz and Alicia Meuret, both of SMU’s Psychology Department, have developed a four-week program to teach asthmatics how to better control their condition by changing the way they breathe.

With the help of a four-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they plan to engage 120 Dallas County patients in four weeks of breathing training by the study’s projected end in July 2012. Their co-investigators include David Rosenfield, also of SMU’s Psychology Department, and Mark Millard, M.D., of Baylor University Medical Center.

Mueret8%2C-9-09%2Clr.jpg More than 22 million Americans suffer from asthma at an estimated annual economic cost of more than $19 billion, according to the American Lung Association. The number of cases doubled between 1980 and 1995, prompting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to classify the disease as an epidemic in 2000.

During an attack, sufferers tend to hyperventilate, breathing fast and deep against constricted airways to fight an overwhelming feeling of oxygen deprivation.

Unfortunately, this makes the problem worse by lowering the body’s carbon dioxide levels, which restricts blood flow to the brain and can further irritate already hypersensitive bronchial passages.

Patients who “overbreathe” on a sustained basis risk chronic CO₂ deficiencies that make them even more vulnerable to future attacks. Rescue medications that relieve asthma symptoms do nothing to correct breathing difficulties associated with hyperventilation.

As part of SMU’s Stress, Anxiety and Chronic Disease Research Program, Ritz and Meuret use their biofeedback-based Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training (CART) to teach asthma patients to normalize and reverse chronic overbreathing. A hand-held device called a capnometer measures the amount of CO₂ exhaled. Using this device, patients learn how to breathe more slowly, shallowly and regularly.

Mueret4a%2C-9-09%2Clr.jpg CART techniques could have a positive impact on quality of asthma treatment even as they reduce the need for acute care, Ritz says.

“The research shows that this kind of respiratory therapy can limit both the severity and frequency of asthma attacks,” he says. “That means fewer doctor visits and less frequent use of rescue medications, with the associated savings of both time and money.”

And for those who count any year without a trip to the emergency room as a year with a good treatment outcome, that means a higher quality of life, says Meuret, who lives with asthma herself.

“The training gives patients new ways to deal with acute symptoms, and that helps them to feel more in control,” she says. — Kathleen Tibbetts

(Photos: SMU Professor Alicia Meuret uses biofeedback data to demonstrate the relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in hyperventilation.)

News coverage:
ScienceDaily
physorg.com
Health.am
e! Science News
RTMagazine.com
medindia.net
Bio-Medicine.org
medicalnewstoday.com

Tags Alicia E. Meuret, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology, Thomas Ritz

Book a live interview

Related links

More SMU Research news