Evaluation study of clinical and neurobiological efficacy of EMDR in patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder [Studio di valutazione dell'efficacia clinica e neurobiologica dell'EMDR in pazienti affetti da disturbo da stress post-traumatico]

Strong evidences support use of EMDR in patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Aim. To evaluate clinical and neurobiological-structural efficacy of EMDR on drug-naive PTSD without comorbidity. Materials and methods. We made clinical evaluation and hippocampal volume measurement by MRI on 29 subjects suffering from PTSD and on 30 healthy control-subjects. Then, patients were treated with EMDR and after three months of psychotherapy the clinical evaluation and the MRI exam were replied. Results and discussion. Our results demonstrated that the diagnosis of PTSD was no more possible on all the patients who terminated the psychotherapy (n=18). At the same time, all the patients showed an average increase of 6% in hippocampal volumes. Conclusions. Our reaserach suggests that EMDR treatment correlates not only with a significant improvement of symptoms of PTSD, but also with a significant increase of hippocampal volumes.