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This is a MUST read!!!

Abused Children May Get Unique Form of PTSD | TIME.com

Child abuse scars not just the brain and body, but, according to the latest research, but may leave its mark on genes as well.

The research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that abused children who develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may experience a biologically distinct form of the disorder from PTSD caused by other types of trauma later in life.

“The main aim of our study was to address the question of whether patients with same clinical diagnosis but different early environments have the same underlying biology,” says Divya Mehta, corresponding author of the study and a postdoctoral student at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany.

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These genetic alterations are known as epigenetic changes: chemical differences that don’t mutate the DNA itself but affect how actively and efficiently the genes are made into proteins. By either silencing or activating genes, epigenetic changes can influence everything from brain development and functioning to the risk for certain diseases. While not necessarily permanent, some of these changes can last a lifetime and some can even be passed on to the next generation.

“In PTSD with a history of child abuse, we found a 12-fold higher [level] of epigenetic changes,” says Mehta. In contrast, people who experienced trauma later in life showed genetic effects that tended to be short-lived, and did not permanently alter the function of the genes.

“It’s a very interesting paper,” says Moshe Szyf, professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies epigenetics. “The important thing about this paper is that it looks at PTSD that has different life histories. One group has a life history of child abuse and the other doesn’t and we see a completely different functional genomic appearance.”

Understanding the different ways that people can develop PTSD could have implications for how the condition is treated. The epigenetic changes were mostly different between the two groups, even if both sets of aberrations ultimately resulted in PTSD, suggesting different ways to potential treat the PTSD depending on its origins.“This study implies that it is essential to take into account the trauma history of an individual,” says Mehta, “Individuals with the same diagnosis might need different treatments depending on their environmental endowments together with their genetic predispositions.”
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“The question is, if indeed the problem is in the DNA, can we reverse this program and do we have tools to reverse that?” says Szyf. “I’m very interested in that and we’re doing some experiments in animal models.” The group is using drugs that can affect gene expression, such as some cancer treatments, for example, to figure out whether they can help to reverse harmful epigenetic changes like those leading to PSTD-like symptoms in animals.
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Whether these genetic markers can reliably be related to childhood trauma and then used to help guide treatment, isn’t clear yet. But the results suggest that such refined strategies might at least be possible. Depending on the patient’s experience, for example, trauma linked to childhood abuse may respond better to certain drugs acting on one pathway, while adult-onset trauma, such as being a victim of rape, might require targeting a different set of genes or proteins. The more we understand how trauma does harm, the better able we will be to reverse the damage or even actually prevent it from causing disease. "

[wisemind3]

Childhood trauma linked to PTSD in our DNA is fascinating. Taking a wholistic approach in how also our ENVIRONMENT plays a major role in our mental health during all stages of development is key.