Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) seriously disrupts the lives of many Veterans. Current
first-line treatments, serotonin reuptake inhibitors or prolonged exposure therapy, take
weeks to months to bring meaningful improvement, leaving Veterans experiencing prolonged
suffering. A promising new treatment approach for rapidly reducing PTSD symptoms is nitrous
oxide, an inhalation anesthetic and putative glutamate modulator that diminishes depression
symptoms within 1 day and has limited side effects. If shown to be similarly effective in
PTSD, nitrous oxide may add dramatically to the treatment armamentarium by bringing rapid
symptom decrease before longer-term therapies take hold. The proposed projects test the
efficacy of nitrous oxide in relieving Veteran's PTSD symptoms and, in parallel, explore how
nitrous oxide may modify cognitive and pain outcomes.