Avoiding fear pictures may predict PTSD

AUSTIN, Texas, April 5 (UPI) -- How long people look at fearful expressions may predict who is most vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder, U.S. researchers say.

Christopher Beevers of the University of Texas at Austin and a team of researchers used a series of eye-tracking experiments and found soldiers who only briefly looked at faces of people looking fearful are less psychologically resilient after stressful combat-zone experiences than those who looked longer at the same images.

The study involved 139 U.S. soldiers with no combat experience, who were given eye-tracking tests to gauge their propensity to avoid or fixate on emotional stimuli. For 30 seconds, they viewed images of faces in four emotional states -- happy, sad, fearful and neutral -- and then they completed a series of tests and interviews.

The solider filled out a Web-based combat experiences log while in Iraq every 30 days on any stressful or traumatic experiences such as witnessing a roadside bomb or participating in a firefight and rated the severity of their stress reactions.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found soldiers who viewed fear stimuli pre-deployment the most briefly required nine war zone stressors to reach the cut-off score for probable diagnosis for PTSD, while those who lingered longer gazing at the pictures required 17 war zone stressors to reach the clinical threshold.