ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2011) — A new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry suggests that certain variants of a gene that helps regulate serotonin (a brain chemical related to mood) may serve as a useful predictor of risk for symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a trauma.
"One of the critical questions surrounding PTSD is why some individuals are at risk for developing the disorder following a trauma, while others appear to be relatively resilient," says lead author, Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine.
"It is known that genetic heritability is one component of the differential risk for PTSD, but the mechanisms remain relatively unknown."
In this study, the researchers were able to look at college students who had been interviewed for a study prior to a 2008 mass shooting on the Northern Illinois University campus, and then were interviewed afterward. The researchers used these prospective psychological data to examine the association between variants in the serotonin transporter gene promoter region of the brain, and PTSD/acute stress disorder symptoms that developed in the aftermath of exposure to the shooting.
"We believe that the strength of this study is the availability of the same validated survey measure to assess PTSD symptoms prior to and after a shared acute traumatic event," explains Ressler, who is also a researcher at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory.
To read more about PTSD, please click on the above title.
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