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Interleukin-6 secretion upon acute psychosocial stress as a potential predictor of psychotherapy outcome in posttraumatic stress disorder

  • Psychiatry and Preclinical Psychiatric Studies - Original Article
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Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe mental disorder that can develop after a traumatic event. PTSD has been reported to be associated with activation of the innate immune system, as measured by increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. While it is well known that PTSD patients display increased levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6) when compared with healthy controls, the relationship between cytokine secretion and treatment outcome has been hardly investigated yet. The aim of this study was to assess the potential association of inflammatory activation and therapy outcome in PTSD. Before therapeutic intervention, we applied the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) as a method to elicit psychosocial stress and an acute inflammatory response. IL-6 levels were measured in blood plasma of PTSD patients at different time points before and after the TSST. Severity of depressive, trauma-related, and somatic symptoms was assessed before and 8 weeks after trauma-focused treatment in a multimodal day clinic setting. We showed that high reactivity of IL-6 to psychosocial stress at the beginning of the therapy was associated with a negative therapy outcome in PTSD, especially regarding depressive symptoms. This study suggests plasma IL-6 reactivity as a potential molecular marker to predict treatment outcome in PTSD.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Andrea Silbermann for help with the organization of this study, and the staff of the day clinic at the Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy for the help with patient recruitment. Work of Tobias Hepp was supported by Volkswagen Foundation.

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  1. Cosima Rhein and Tobias Hepp have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Schwabachanlage 4, 91054, Erlangen, Germany

    Cosima Rhein, Tobias Hepp, Olga Kraus, Marietta Lieb & Yesim Erim

  2. Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany

    Tobias Hepp

  3. Chair of Health Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany

    Olga Kraus, Kristin von Majewski & Nicolas Rohleder

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  1. Cosima Rhein
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Correspondence to Cosima Rhein.

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Rhein, C., Hepp, T., Kraus, O. et al. Interleukin-6 secretion upon acute psychosocial stress as a potential predictor of psychotherapy outcome in posttraumatic stress disorder. J Neural Transm 128, 1301–1310 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-021-02346-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-021-02346-8

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