Veteran’s Stress, Trauma and Synapse Rehabilitation

This book provides a structured, multidisciplinary synthesis of the psychological, social, and neurobiological consequences of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It outlines how contemporary therapeutic strategies, considered through the lens of the concept of synaptic rehabilitation, can intervene in this devastating condition. Through 17 chapters, the volume journeys from first-hand testimony to molecular mechanisms, mapping how war-induced trauma distorts brain function, cognition, and social behaviour, and how these changes may be reversed. The book’s point of departure is personal: a historical account of an Australian World War I veteran ("Pop"), whose experience at the battle for the Somme in France reveals not only the acute horrors of trench warfare but the intergenerational consequences of unresolved PTSD. From this foundation, the text proceeds through empirical research, clinical instruments, neurobiological models, and therapeutic techniques. Each chapter builds upon the last in order to provide a coherent clinical and neurophysiological narrative.

Dr. Maxwell Bennett AO is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience and held the first University Chair for ‘research recognized internationally to be of exceptional distinction’ at Sydney University. He graduated in Electrical Engineering and did his doctoral research in Zoology at Melbourne University. His over 400 papers are concerned with research on synaptic connections between nerve cells in the brain, most recently in relation to stress and trauma. Professor Bennett has written fifteen books, mostly concerned with synapses. Most recently he has published Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry; Stress, Trauma & Synaptic Plasticity (with Jim Lagopoulos); and Childhood Stress, Trauma and Synapse Loss. He has been President of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (now Science & Technology, Australia), the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience, and the Australian Neuroscience Society. Professor Bennett founded the Brain and Mind Research Institute (now Centre) at Sydney 20 years ago and subsequently the Mind and Neuroscience Institute (now Thompson Institute). He is at present Chair of Thompson Brain and Mind Healthcare.