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- Fear and physiological responses that prepare the body to "fight or run away" are normal reactions to a threat, but post-traumatic stress disorder is different from anxiety.
- The diagnosis of post-traumatic stress should be made by a specialist who will take into account whether the person mentally revisits the traumatic event
On September 19, 2017, a student of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (Inmegen) presented his review to record the event, one of the participants turned on his recorder, no one 's was waiting for the device to also record the sounds of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake It started at 1:00 pm on Tuesday and this caused the death of more than 360 people in the country and the collapse of more than 40 buildings in Mexico City.
The recorder was the unflappable witness of screaming, breaking glass, fractures and creaks, in a building that was suffering the consequences of the movement of the earth. Dr. Humberto Nicolini Sánchez, a researcher at Inmegen, knows that if he transmits this audio to a person suffering from post-traumatic stress due to the earthquake, he will immediately be able to see in his face how the physical reactions seem to evoke. the traumatic event. I can not finish listening to the recording.
In one way or another, all the people in Mexico suffered the physical and emotional consequences of this unfortunate event, but we did not all develop post-traumatic stress, explains the researcher, and we explain that part of this situation is explained In the same way, some have lived near the collapse or have even been trapped in the rubble, and d & # 39; others have felt that a slight movement: "There is a correlation between the severity of the event that we live and a higher frequency of post-traumatic stress." But there are people who were not close to the disaster and simply because they were immersed in the news and later the stories developed post-traumatic stress. On the other hand, there are people who were there where there were calamities and who did not develop them. "
This tells scientists that the environment is not the only factor involved in the development of post-traumatic stress and that there could be a genetic or epigenetic factor involved.
There is scientific evidence suggesting that living a traumatic event could result in a different reading of a person's genetic information, which would alter some hormonal pathways, which would make her suffer from more severe symptoms than the rest of the body. population.
To contribute to this hypothesis, Humberto Nicolini initiated a project in the Laboratory of Genomics of Psychiatric and Neurodegenerative Diseases of Inmegen, to analyze the differences in the epigenome between people who developed post-traumatic stress due to the earthquake of September 19 and people who did not developed.
Stress out of the ordinary
Fear and physiological responses that prepare the body to "fight or flee" are normal responses to a threat, but post-traumatic stress disorder is different from the processes of anxiety or adjustment that suffer the most when they feel threatened. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress can be so severe that they harm an individual's life and do not go away over time, says Humberto Nicolini.
The diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder should be done by a specialist who will take into account if the person mentally revises the traumatic event – even reacting with palpitations and sweats -, if he has nightmares or thoughts scary, he can not approach places or people who remind him of the event, if you jump easily or if you suffer from remorse, anger, guilt or others mood changes. These symptoms may occur immediately after the traumatic event, but they can also occur up to six months later, "Still today, talk about the earthquake, the alarm will sound again or again. there are simulations and these people already react with an anxiety attack with very serious symptoms, which leaves them inactive for the rest of the day.They present important physical signs and discomforts such as sleep problems , emotional, retention, even many deserve to be treated.These are the cases we document with interviews and evaluations. "
Humberto Nicolini and a team of scientists are working with people who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry, at the Juan N. Navarro Children's Mental Hospital and in other health institutes. they take blood and saliva samples to perform the epigenetic analysis.
Methyl and the stress hormone
People's genes do not change due to exposure to a traumatic event, but there are proteins that can add a molecule called methyl (CH3-) in some parts of the genetic material through a chemical reaction. To a certain extent, this molecule "covers up" the genes and prevents the cellular machinery from joining them and reading them correctly. This process called methylation is an epigenetic process, that is, it is regulated by the environment, and although it does not change what is written in the genes, he can inhibit his activity.
Various Studies suggest that the pattern of methylation or the amount of methyl molecules in DNA is different in people who suffer from post-traumatic stress and those who do not. These differences in methylation appear to be concentrated in the receptor genes of cortisol, a molecule known as the stress hormone.
Cortisol is a hormone that is produced in the adrenal glands – just above the kidneys – through signals that the central nervous system sends to an axis called the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal gland. One of the reasons this hormone is released is due to stressful situations. When it is released, it causes the increase of blood sugar, helps the metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates and suppresses the immune system.
Cortisol is necessary for a correct system of the human organism, but when there are continual stressful situations, its release is high or impaired and can cause physiological problems. These problems could contribute to the symptomatology of post-traumatic stress.
Samples impossible to achieve
According to Humberto Nicolini, there is a whole debate about whether or not it is okay to measure epigenetic changes in blood samples of people with post-traumatic stress disorder. This is because epigenetic changes can only occur in the body tissues involved in the environmental situation that triggers them. "The ideal way to study something at the brain level would be to take brain tissue samples, but obviously that's not possible. Even so, as many of the pathways we know are altered in post stress." -traumatic have to do with the response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which controls cortisol, and which is in turn related to many immune processes, it is likely that we can see changes in the blood device. "
The researcher hopes that epigenetic changes in brain tissue will be reflected in cortisol release patterns and will alter the methylation of immune cells. The results of this study, which will be calculated in one year, may explain some of the consequences of an event that has marked not only the bones, but even the DNA, a large number of Mexicans.
With information from Amapola Nava and Conacyt
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