Biomarkers for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Discovered in Blood 2023

These biomarkers may be used to predict PTSD, diagnose it, or monitor therapy.

Trauma can cause PTSD. Flashbacks, trouble sleeping or focusing, unpleasant thoughts, memory issues, and avoiding triggers are used to identify it.

PTSD can be difficult to diagnose and evaluate since other conditions might have the same symptoms.

The biggest prospective investigation of PTSD biochemical markers comprised over 1,000 military personnel.

“This study provides valuable insights into the natural history of PTSD and the effectiveness of interventions, which can inform the development of treatment guidelines and improve the care for individuals suffering from PTSD,” said Walter Reed Army Institute of Research researcher Stacy-Ann Miller in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“Better techniques of predicting or screening for PTSD might assist overcome the disease by identifying high-risk individuals and providing early intervention or preventive efforts. This may lessen symptoms or prevent the illness.

Miller will discuss the new discovery at Discover BMB, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual conference in Seattle, March 25–28.

Biomarkers can quantify PTSD-related physiological alterations. The study examined four biomarkers in blood samples from active-duty military personnel before, three days after, and three to six months following a 10-month deployment.

Stress, sadness, anxiety, and mental health issues are connected to biomarkers.

The glycolytic ratio, which measures how the body breaks down sugar to make energy; arginine, an amino acid that assists the immune and cardiovascular systems; serotonin, which regulates mood, sleep, and other activities; and glutamate, which aids learning and memory.

The researchers grouped military members by PTSD and mental resilience and compared the four biomarkers. Clinical diagnostic and PTSD symptoms determined PTSD, sub-threshold PTSD, or no PTSD.

Resilience was determined by PTSD, anxiety, sleep quality, alcohol use disorders, combat exposures, traumatic brain damage, and overall physical and mental health.

These measures have shown that low-resilience people are more likely to develop PTSD after deployment than high-resilience people.

PTSD or sub-threshold PTSD patients had significantly higher glycolytic ratio and lower arginine than high-resilience patients.

PTSD patients had significantly lower serotonin and higher glutamate than resilient people. These associations were independent of gender, age, BMI, smoking, and caffeine consumption.

The researchers said the biomarkers could predict who is at high risk of PTSD, improve PTSD diagnosis, and increase understanding of its causes and effects.

Miller added that better PTSD screening and prediction tools might improve therapy by revealing the disorder’s molecular causes.

“This might lead to more focused and successful PTSD therapies or to identify certain subtypes of PTSD, which may respond differently to different treatments.”

To prove the biomarkers’ real-world relevance, researchers advised additional study and validation.

The PTSD Systems Biology Consortium—a network of government and university labs—conducted the research. Collaborators include Aarti Gautam, Ruoting Yang, Seid Muhie, Marti Jett, and Rasha Hammamieh of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; Inyoul Lee, Kai Wang, and Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology; Charles Marmar of New York University Langone Medical Center; Rachel Yehuda and Janine Florey of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Synthia H. Mellon and Owen M. Wolkowitz of the University of California, San Francisco; Kerry Ressler