Post-traumatic stress disorder changes brain
Photo by Warren Zinn
JB: After any sort of traumatic event, people can suffer intense fear, anger or helplessness.
DB: And, for some people, the feelings don’t fade over time. They relive the trauma in nightmares and flashbacks. Or they can’t sleep at all. Or they can feel detached from life and estranged from other people. This might be post–traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Douglas Bremner: PTSD can be thought of as just a failure to turn off the fear response.
JB: That’s Douglas Bremner of Emory University. He studies post–traumatic stress disorder, using PET scans to examine the brains of those who suffer from it. He said that, in PTSD sufferers, a part of the brain called the hippocampus is smaller. This region of the brain plays a critical role in learning and memory, and also probably in emotion.
DB: According to Dr. Bremner, the hippocampus is sensitive to stress. In some people, extreme stress makes that part of the brain weaker. World events have put PTSD in the news. But this disorder is nothing new. Bremner says you’ll probably find it anywhere you find people in trouble.
JB: There’s no definite cure for PTSD, but there are therapies and medications that can help. For a link to the National Center for Post–Traumatic Stress Disorder, come to earthsky.org. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
Find out more about PTSD and learn how to get help if you need it at the National Center for Post–Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Post–Traumatic Stress Disorder, from Medline Plus.
Our thanks to:
J Douglas Bremner, MD
Director, Emory Center for Positron Emission Tomography
Department of Radiology
Emory University Hospital
Atlanta, GA
Bremner’s work is very accessible and informative and I applaud E&S for increasing its visibility. One thing that he points out is that although PTSD is 10 times more prevalent than cancer, only 1/10 the funding is available for PTSD research compared to that related to cancer research. Although the comparison is not really fair (apples and oranges) it is interesting, especially when one considers the potential (increasing, it would seem) for exposure to trauma that societies and governments around the world seem willing to allow and inflict. The sad irony is that these institutions are often the major sources of research funding.