Combat Stress damages the brain
- From: Lance <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:07:23 -0700 (PDT)
Does Stress Damage The Brain?
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2008) — Individuals who experience military
combat obviously endure extreme stress, and this exposure leaves many
diagnosed with the psychiatric condition of post-traumatic stress
disorder, or PTSD. PTSD is associated with several abnormalities in
brain structure and function.
However, as researcher Roger Pitman explains, "Although it is tempting
to conclude that these abnormalities were caused by the traumatic
event, it is also possible that they were pre-existing risk factors
that increased the risk of developing PTSD upon the traumatic event's
occurrence." Drs. Kasai and Yamasue along with their colleagues sought
to examine this association in a new study published in the March 15th
issue of Biological Psychiatry.
The authors measured the gray matter density of the brains of combat-
exposed Vietnam veterans, some with and some without PTSD, and their
combat-unexposed identical twins using a technology called magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI). The detailed images provided by the MRI scans
then allowed the investigators to compare specific brain regions of
the siblings. They found that the gray matter density of the pregenual
anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional
functioning, was reduced in veterans with PTSD, but not in their twins
who had not experienced combat.
According to Dr. Pitman, "this finding supports the conclusion that
the psychological stress resulting from the traumatic stressor may
damage this brain region, with deleterious emotional consequences."
John H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated
with both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut
Healthcare System, discusses the need for this kind of research
because of two separate sets of prior findings: "On the one hand,
compelling data from animal research indicates that stress can cause
brain atrophy and even neural death in some brain regions. On the
other hand, the volume of several brain regions are highly heritable
and small brain volumes, presumably related to reduced function, in
the hippocampus may increase stress reactivity or impair the capacity
for resilience." He adds that findings from this study "suggest that
volume reductions in [the anterior cingulate cortex] associated with
PTSD arise as a consequence of stress exposure rather than emerging as
a heritable trait," leaving one to conclude that "the extent to which
particular genes and environmental exposures interact to shape the
development of the brain thus appears to be complex and region-
specific."
The article is "Evidence for Acquired Pregenual Anterior Cingulate
Gray Matter Loss from a Twin Study of Combat-Related Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder" by Kiyoto Kasai, Hidenori Yamasue, Mark W.
Gilbertson, Martha E. Shenton, Scott L. Rauch and Roger K. Pitman.
Drs. Kasai and Yamasue are affiliated with the Department of
Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo in
Tokyo, Japan. Drs. Gilbertson, Shenton, Rauch and Pitman are with the
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts. Dr. Gilbertson is also from the Research Service, VA
Medical Center, Manchester, New Hampshire. Dr. Shenton is also
affiliated with the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of
Psychiatry, and the Surgical Planning Laboratory, MRI Division,
Department of Radiology, Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston,
Massachusetts. Dr. Rauch is also with McLean Hospital in Belmont,
Massachusetts. Dr. Pitman is also from the Department of Psychiatry,
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. The article
appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 63, Issue 6 (March 15, 2008),
published by Elsevier.
Adapted from materials provided by Elsevier.
Elsevier (2008, March 19). Does Stress Damage The Brain?.
ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 19, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080318094525.htm
.
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