A UCLA-led research team plans to test a new electrical patch that helps treat the “invisible wounds of war” — post-traumatic stress disorder — in veterans and others.

The University of California-Los Angeles team plans to conduct the veteran tests after initial use of the device on 12 people — survivors of rape, car accidents, domestic abuse, and other traumas — provided considerable relief from PTSD.

"We're talking about patients for whom illness had almost become a way of life," said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, the study's senior author, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the neuromodulation division at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. "Yet they were coming in and saying, 'For the first time in years I slept through the night,' or 'My nightmares are gone.' The effect was extraordinarily powerful."

The research, presented at three scholarly conferences and published in the journal Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface, revealed the first evidence that trigeminal nerve stimulation, or TNS, holds promise for treating chronic PTSD.

"Most patients with PTSD do get some benefit from existing treatments, but the great majority still have symptoms and suffer for years from those symptoms," said Dr. Leuchter, who is also a staff psychiatrist at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. "This could be a breakthrough for patients who have not been helped adequately by existing treatments."

Based on the study, the scientists are recruiting military veterans, who are at an even greater risk for PTSD, for the next phase of their research.