A Rosalind Franklin University associate professor has a theory a human hormone helping women in labor and breast feeding can be used to treat anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. The National Institutes of Health is willing to invest $4.36 million to help her prove it.
Joanna Dabrowska received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health five years ago to start proving her theory, and recently got another $2.36 million in a competitive renewal grant to continue her work on the North Chicago campus to help people with anxiety and PTSD.
Dabrowska said the hormone — oxytocin — is located in the portion of the brain which can affect anxiety. She is trying to prove more oxytocin will ease feelings of anxiety, and with it potentially PTSD.
While the hormone primarily helps women in labor and drawing milk from their breasts to feed their baby, Dabrowska said oxytocin is also present in men. If eventually it becomes a treatment for the two issues, it can be used for everyone.
“Even though it’s not involved in the reproductive function in men as it is in women, it is released in the brain of men and women and it can affect fear and anxiety levels in both,” Dabrowska said.
Initially, Dabrowska said she intended to study the impact of the hormone as a way to treat anxiety, but as she delved deeper into her research she determined it could also be used to treat PTSD.
“This is a natural hormone, not a manufactured antidepressant,” Dabrowska said. “This will help people cope with stress by boosting (them) with this compound. For the last 10 years, the (Food and Drug Administration) has not approved a new drug to treat anxiety.”
Should Dabrowska’s research eventually lead to treatment approved by the FDA, Ronald Kaplan, Rosalind Franklin’s executive vice president for research, said it will lead to a new treatment to ameliorate anxiety and PTSD.
“It’s a more natural-like solution to the currently manufactured therapeutics,” Kaplan said. “There is no manufactured FDA pharmaceutical therapeutic for PTSD.”
At least 6% of people in the United States will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the Veterans Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
While PTSD is often referred to as something members of the military experience related to their time in combat, Dabrowska said it can happen to anyone who experienced trauma in their past.
“It can come from a trauma that happened to anyone,” Dabrowska said. “The cause could be from childhood.”
In the next five years, Dabrowska said she hopes to better understand how use of oxytocin and another hormone — vasopressin — can reduce anxiety and PTSD in a person by broadening her research. She plans more extensive behavioral testing to see if these hormones can better prepare people for anxious behavior.
“Our work fills a significant knowledge gap which can lead to a novel therapeutic strategy resulting in (a) more comprehensive treatment approach for anxiety disorders,” Dabrowska said in a news release.
