PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects people who experience a traumatic event beyond ordinary day-to-day stressors. It’s normal to feel anxious and frightened in the moment, but people with PTSD carry that fear—and their body’s reactions to it—long after their trauma.
PTSD can affect people who have experienced violence, lost a loved one, or lived through a disaster, accident, abuse, or even combat. It can be devastating to those who suffer from it, harming their ability to sleep, giving them vivid, terrifying flashback-like memories of their trauma, causing anxiety attacks and making them feel numb to their surroundings. Doctors use antidepressants and talk therapy to treat the disorder.
Not everyone who suffers a trauma will experience PTSD. About seven or eight out of every 100 people will experience PTSD in their lifetime. About 500,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have screened positive for the condition.
About 8% of people will experience PTSD in their life
Twenty U.S. military veterans die by suicide every day—more than die in combat
PTSD is a fascinating case for the field of epigenetics, the intersection of genes and the environment, since all people with the disorder have experienced an environmental trigger at the start of their illness. Many of the samples in the Institute’s postmortem brain collection come from people who had been diagnosed with PTSD, giving scientists an unprecedented look into the biological roots and effects of the disorder.
Lieber scientists are specifically studying fear regulation, a phenomenon seen in patients with PTSD and anxiety. They’re examining the brain circuits involved in fear by first looking at animal models and then applying their observations to Lieber’s collection of postmortem brains. They’ve found that animals with fear regulation problems seem to experience deficits of inhibitory neuronal communication in their fear circuits.
That is, the neurons that could tamp down their fear related feelings or memories don’t fire perfectly. By identifying specific neurons tied to fear or excitability, the scientists hope to identify potential drug targets that could help anxious or traumatized people recover.
