ArticleJournal of psychiatric research2021
The environment contributes more than genetics to smaller hippocampal volume in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Article in Journal of psychiatric research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of transcutaneous cervical vagus nerve stimulation on declarative and working memory in patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A pilot study.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Trial
- Preventive Effect of Hippocampal Sparing on Cognitive Dysfunction of Patients Undergoing Whole-Brain Radiotherapy and Imaging Assessment of Hippocampal Volume Changes.BioMed research international · 2022Trial
- A novel composite model of PTSD induced by social bullying: validation via multidimensional behavioral and molecular biomarkers.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- A pilot study of brain correlates of long-term treatment with transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation in posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2026Article
- Investigating the Effect of Caffeine on the Effectiveness of Crocin in Improving Behavioral Symptoms and Brain Tissue Changes in the Hippocampus in the Post-Traumatic Stress Model in Rats.Advanced biomedical research · 2026Article
- The allostatic triage model of psychopathology (ATP Model): How reallocation of brain energetic resources under stress elicits psychiatric symptoms.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- The pattern of dissociative symptoms differs between post-traumatic stress disorder and first esketamine administration for treatment-resistant depression.Journal of affective disorders · 2025Article
- Walking and Hippocampal Formation Volume Changes: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Progress in spatiotemporal regulation of fear memory: neural circuit mechanisms and implications for PTSD.General psychiatry · 2025Review
- Review
- Psychometric properties of the 23-Item Clinician Administered Dissociative States Scale (CADSS) in a psychological trauma population.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Vulnerability of the Hippocampus to Insults: Links to Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Role of 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 receptors in the regulation of anxiety reactions.Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B · 2024Article
- Artemisinin reduces PTSD-like symptoms, improves synaptic plasticity, and inhibits apoptosis in rats subjected to single prolonged stress.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Insights into the Involvement and Therapeutic Target Potential of the Dopamine System in the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Molecular neurobiology · 2023Review
- Longitudinal volumetric evaluation of hippocampus and amygdala subregions in recent trauma survivors.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Association of polygenic risk scores, traumatic life events and coping strategies with war-related PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity in the South Eastern Europe (SEE)-PTSD cohort.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2022Article
- Post-traumatic stress disorder: clinical and translational neuroscience from cells to circuits.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2022Review
- The relationship between recent PTSD secondary to sexual assault, hippocampal volume and resting state functional connectivity in adolescent girls.Neurobiology of stress · 2022Article
- Brain-heart connections in stress and cardiovascular disease: Implications for the cardiac patient.Atherosclerosis · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStudies using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumetrics showed smaller hippocampal volume in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These studies were cross-sectional and did not address whether smaller volume is secondary to stress-induced damage, or whether pre-existing factors account for the findings. The purpose of this study was to use a co-twin case control design to assess the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to hippocampal volume in PTSD.
methodsMonozygotic (N = 13 pairs) and dizygotic (N = 21 pairs) twins with a history of Vietnam Era military service, where one brother went to Vietnam and developed PTSD, while his brother did not go to Vietnam or develop PTSD, underwent MR imaging of the brain. Structural MRI scans were used to manually outline the left and right hippocampus on multiple coronal slices, add the areas and adjust for slice thickness to determine hippocampal volume.
resultsTwins with Vietnam combat-related PTSD had a mean 11% smaller right hippocampal volume in comparison to their twin brothers without combat exposure or PTSD (p < .05). There was no significant interaction by zygosity, suggesting that this was not a predisposing risk factor or genetic effect.
conclusionsThese findings are consistent with smaller hippocampal volume in PTSD, and suggest that the effects are primarily due to environmental effects such as the stress of combat.
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