It creeps up on you for no apparent reason: tension, intrusive thoughts, irritability, unreasonable fear. Nights can be sleepless, and your appetite is waning.
These are some of the symptoms for about 8 million adults in the United States who each year suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a USF College of Public Health (COPH) researcher offers new insights into this often-misunderstood condition.
In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, 95 locations in the human genome are linked with a risk of developing PTSD. The findings involved an international pool of participants and may help validate the role of heredity in PTSD.
“This research is important because it’s the largest analysis of PTSD genetics to date, including data from across the genome and incorporating over 1.3 million study participants,’’ said Dr. Monica Uddin, a COPH professor in the USF Genomics Program.
Uddin is co-author of the paper “Genome-wide association analyses identify 95 risk loci and provide insights into the neurobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder.’’
In the study, researchers looked at genetic data from people around the world, searching for links between regions of the genome and the risk of developing a harmful health condition. The study found 95 loci − the locations of a gene within a chromosome − strongly linked with PTSD risk, as well as 43 genes that may cause it. Uddin worked with a large group of researchers and said it could open doors for improved treatments of PTSD.
The team’s research “has enabled identification of many loci that can be prioritized for future follow-up studies of target genes using pre-clinical (animal and human cell culture) models to better understand how these genes might be manipulated alone or together to treat PTSD.’’
Results from this global databank also show that genetic risk prediction based on European ancestry (EA) estimates do not translate well to non-EA individuals, “highlighting the need for additional work in this area’’ for a better understanding of risk, she said.
The research involved a meta-analysis of 88 studies, meaning the researchers combined results from each study to increase power to detect the signal of genetic influences on PTSD. Recruiting participants for each study, as well collecting and analyzing data, was a “significant effort from many, many individuals,’’ Uddin added.
PTSD is a chronic condition for many people, posing a substantial quality-of-life and economic burden to society. Substantial advances are being made in the understanding of PTSD biology through preclinical studies, many of which are focused on fear systems in the brain.
While most people have some form of traumatic experience in their lives – the death of a loved one, for instance − they usually recover over time, experts say. But people with PTSD face a different set of challenges that can harm their quality of life and may require medical attention.
One area where PTSD is on the rise is on college campuses in the United States. The prevalence of PTSD increased from 3.4 to 7.5 percent among more than 390,000 participants between 2017 and 2022, according to a report in the New York Times. The findings from the Healthy Minds Study indicate that student mental health has been directly affected by circumstances created by the coronavirus pandemic.
Symptoms of PTSD may include the following, according to the National Institutes of Health:
- Being easily startled
- Feeling tense, on guard, or on edge
- Having difficulty concentrating
- Having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Feeling irritable and having angry or aggressive outbursts
- Engaging in risky, reckless, or destructive behavior
According to the National Center for PTSD, about six out of every 100 people will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Women are more likely to develop PTSD than men. Certain aspects of the traumatic event and some biological factors, such as genes, may make some people more likely to develop the condition.