Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a condition brought on by an extremely terrifying physical or emotional event. Many times PTSD is linked to war, sexual abuse or trauma, extreme child or domestic abuse, kidnapping, or victims of other violent acts. It is a common diagnosis for military personnel who have participated in combat situations in wartime.
A recent study researched in part by the Veterans Affairs Research Service, or VARS, found that there is a genetic predisposition for PTSD. The conclusion of the study was that there is a “familial risk factor for developing PTSD after exposure to psychological trauma.” The study was performed by VARS as well as the Department of Psychology, Tufts University; Departments of Psychiatry and Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital; and Harvard Medical School and Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital.
The objective of the study — titled “Resting Metabolic Activity in the Cingulate Cortex and Vulnerability to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” — was to “determine whether resting functional abnormalities found in PTSD are acquired characteristics or familial risk factors.” The doctors used pairs of twins and compared their resting regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose. The participants were combat exposed veterans who had been diagnosed with PTSD and their identical twins not exposed to combat without PTSD as well as combat exposed vets without PTSD and their twins also not exposed to combat. The study used positron emission tomography and fluorodeoxyglucose as forms of measurement.
Another study done on individuals affected by a massive earthquake wielded the same results. This study was published in the December 2008 issue of Psychiatric Genetics. In the article, Dr. Goenjian from the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences says, “It’s very hard to do family studies on PTSD, because typically only single individuals, not whole families, are exposed to a particular trauma. In our study, we were able to avert this problem, since all the subjects were exposed to the same severe trauma at the same time.”
The conclusion of the study was the same as the one done on combat veterans. “The genetic makeup of some individuals makes them substantially more vulnerable than others to develop symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression,” Caroline Cassels writes in Medscape Psychiatry.
These studies do not suggest that being predisposed to PTSD necessarily means a person will suffer from the disorder but rather that there are hereditary factors that make a person more vulnerable to PTSD than a person without such factors. One does not need to have these factors to be diagnosed with PTSD nor will everyone who is predisposed end up being diagnosed with the disorder.
Similar studies have been conducted on addictive behaviors such as alcoholism. Often, those who are identified as having the genetic predisposition for such diseases can therefore take the precautions to avoid situations that might cause them. This is not the case with PTSD, however, since one cannot predict when an extreme situation or event will occur or the participant’s response to the event. Therefore, it is imperative that professional help and evaluation occur after such extreme events take place.
