CHICAGO (AP) - Researchers say they have found a likely genetic trigger to post-traumatic stress.
Emory University's Kerry Ressler says a study of adults who suffered childhood abuse has found that there was a greater rate of PTSD among the adults who also had specific variations in a stress-related gene.
Ressler says the study suggests that there are critical times in childhood when the brain is more vulnerable "to outside influences" that shape a person's stress response system.
The study has also found that the worse the abuse, the stronger the risk that people with those gene variations will develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, says the research comes at a time when mental health professionals expect a rise in PTSD among veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Insel's agency paid for the study.
It appears in tomorrow's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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