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Tuesday, November 11, 2003Since it was already approved for use in people, he and Barbara Rothbaum, director of the school's trauma- and anxiety-recovery program, tested it on 28 acrophobics, people afraid of heights. Each got a pill just before their two virtual-reality therapy sessions, in which computerized goggles are used to simulate going up a glass elevator in a hotel lobby. Nobody knew whether the pill was a placebo or one of two doses of D-cycloserine, the 500 milligrams used for TB or one-tenth that dose. One participant dropped out. When checked one week after and three months after the second session, the 10 patients who had gotten placebos did slightly better than they had at the start. But the 17 on the drug — the dose didn't seem to matter — did as well as or better than people who had finished the usual course of eight treatments, Davis said. The research was presented at a meeting, so there's no way to compare the data, but it sounds interesting. To think that the key to conquering fear may lie in just one small protein molecule in the brain. posted by Sydney on 11/11/2003 07:57:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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