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New UCLA study sheds light on why some people develop PTSD

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  • New UCLA study sheds light on why some people develop PTSD

    News-Medical
    Jan 11 2015


    New UCLA study sheds light on why some people develop PTSD

    Published on January 11, 2015 at 1:30 PM ยท No Comments

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    Why do some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while
    others who suffered the same ordeal do not? A new UCLA discovery may
    shed light on the answer.

    UCLA scientists have linked two gene variants to the debilitating
    mental disorder, suggesting that heredity influences a person's risk
    of developing PTSD. Published in the February 2015 edition of the
    Journal of Affective Disorders, the findings could provide a
    biological basis for diagnosing and treating PTSD more effectively in
    the future.

    "Many people suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder after
    surviving a life-threatening ordeal like war, rape or a natural
    disaster," explained lead author Dr. Armen Goenjian, a researcher at
    the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "But
    not everyone who experiences trauma suffers from PTSD. We investigated
    whether PTSD has genetic underpinnings that make some people more
    vulnerable to the syndrome than others."

    In 1988, Goenjian, an Armenian American, raced to Spitak, Armenia,
    after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the country. The temblor
    leveled entire towns and cities, killing more than 25,000 Armenians,
    two-thirds of them children.

    With support from the Armenian Relief Society, Goenjian and his
    colleagues helped establish a pair of psychiatric clinics that treated
    earthquake survivors for 21 years. A dozen multigenerational families
    in northern Armenia agreed to allow their blood samples to be sent to
    UCLA, where Goenjian and his colleagues combed the DNA of 200
    individuals for genetic clues to psychiatric vulnerability.

    In 2012, his team discovered that PTSD was more common in survivors
    who carried two gene variants associated with depression. In the
    current study, Goenjian and first author Julia Bailey, an adjunct
    assistant professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of
    Public Health, focused on two genes called COMT and TPH-2 that play
    important roles in brain function.

    COMT is an enzyme that degrades dopamine, a neurotransmitter that
    controls the brain's reward and pleasure centers, and helps regulate
    mood, thinking, attention and behavior. Too much or too little
    dopamine can influence various neurological and psychological
    disorders.

    TPH-2 controls the production of serotonin, a brain hormone that
    regulates mood, sleep and alertness -- all of which are disrupted in
    PTSD. Antidepressants called SSRIs, or selective serotonin re-uptake
    inhibitors, which were designed to treat depression, target serotonin.
    More physicians are prescribing SSRIs to treat disorders beyond
    depression, including PTSD.

    "We found a significant association between variants of COMT and TPH-2
    with PTSD symptoms, suggesting that these genes contribute to the
    onset and persistence of the disorder," said Goenjian. "Our results
    indicate that people who carry these genetic variants may be at higher
    risk of developing PTSD."

    The team used the most recent PTSD criteria from the American
    Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual to measure genes' role in
    predisposing someone to the disorder. The new criteria increased
    estimates of a person's predisposition for PTSD to 60 percent;
    estimates based on older criteria reached only 41 percent.

    "Assessments of patients based upon the latest diagnostic criteria may
    boost the field's chances of finding new genetic markers for PTSD,"
    said Goenjian. "We hope our findings will lead to molecular methods
    for screening people at risk for this disorder and identify new drug
    therapies for prevention and treatment."

    Still, Goenjian cautioned, PTSD is likely caused by multiple genes and
    studies should be continued to find more of the genes involved.

    PTSD affects about 7 percent of Americans and became a pressing health
    issue for a large percentage of war veterans returning from tours in
    Iraq and Afghanistan.

    "A diagnostic tool based upon PTSD-linked genes would greatly help us
    in identifying people who are at high risk for developing the
    disorder," Goenjian said. "Our findings may also help scientists
    uncover more refined treatments, such as gene therapy or new drugs
    that regulate the chemicals associated with PTSD symptoms."

    Source:

    University of California, Los Angeles

    http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150111/New-UCLA-study-sheds-light-on-why-some-people-develop-PTSD.aspx

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