High Blood Pressure is a Marker of Good Response to Prazosin in PTSD
Prazosin, an alpha-1 adrenoreceptor antagonist, has been found to be effective at reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including nightmares. Researchers led by Murray Raskind hypothesized that there may be a link between blood pressure and response to prazosin, since resting blood pressure can be used to measure alpha-1 adrenoreceptor responsiveness. In a study of active duty combat soldiers with PTSD, higher resting blood pressure and smaller drop in blood pressure when going from lying down to standing up predicted a better response to prazosin.
The researchers believe that blood pressure can be used to estimate the central nervous systems’s responsiveness to norepinephrine, which prazosin blocks. In patients with PTSD who received placebo instead of prazosin, blood pressure did not predict improvement. Raskind and colleagues hope to be better able to predict response to prazosin in PTSD by measuring patients’ baseline blood pressure.
