MUSKEGON, MI — When Dana Harvey talks about his experience with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, his warm tone becomes heavy and listless.

His voice drops deeper and sometimes trails off toward the end of a sentence. There is more weight to his words; each is carefully chosen and seems to sit next to him in the room.

Harvey joined the U.S. Navy at 19 becau...

Advice from a PTSD expert during a tragic month

These days, news of tragedy feels relentless.

On Sunday, three police officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, which followed a deadly attempted coup in Turkey on Friday, which followed the slaughter of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, which followed the shooting of five Dallas cops the week before, wh...

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates up to 30 percent of former service members — from the Vietnam war to Iraq and Afghanistan — have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They don’t all seek treatment, but among those who do, the VA says 20 to 40 percent don’t get better with the standard regimen of therapy, medication, or both. Increasingly veterans are...

When Charles Wilkinson thinks about soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) his mind jumps to a pea-size structure tucked behind the bridge of the nose and ensconced below the base of the brain. There the pituitary gland serves as the master regulator of the human endocrine system, producing vital hormones that influence growth and deve...

It’s well known that stress makes people sick, and extreme trauma makes them even sicker. But a new study suggests that not everyone who endures adversity is doomed to chronic illness. There might be a way to prevent the body from attacking itself in the wake of trauma.

For the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sc...

Men who are stressed can pass on anxiety and depression to their children and grandchildren, scientists in Australia have found, in a study which indicates parental advice has been “disproportionately” focused on the health and diet of women. 

The study, based on mice which were fed stress hormones, examined the behaviour of the first and secon...

A retired U.S. Marine dog was honored today with the PDSA Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross which is the highest British military decoration awarded for valor. Lucca, a German Shepherd, received the award after completing 400 missions in six years of active service with allied troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and losing a leg on the bat...

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – C.G. Jung

Do you know who you are? I imagine most people would say they do, however, I would argue otherwise. For one, knowing yourself doesn’t come naturally. Self-knowledge is attained over time through focused effort which I d...

MIT researchers Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu recently made history when they successfully implanted a false memory into the mind of a mouse. The proof was a simple reaction from the rodent, but the implications are vast. They placed the furry little creature inside a metal box, and it froze, displaying a distinct fear response. The mouse was reacting as if it ha...

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. -- Stationed in Khandahar, Afghanistan, for nine months in 2012, Sgt. Matthew Thomason got used to falling asleep to the lullaby of gunfire and explosions -- so much so that he could tell what kind of weapon was being fired just by the sound. When he returned home to Clark County in September 2013, he thought he would miss the noise of w...