A century after the outbreak of World War I on July 28, 2014, post-traumatic stress disorder (as it is now known) is still of tremendous significance. PTSD took a big toll on Vietnam-era soldiers and today affects seven to 20 percent of U.S. veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to a Institute of Medicine report, treatment is often inadequate, ad hoc, or chaotic. Recent evidence suggests that a tendency of combat soldiers to develop PTSD may indeed be genetic: a 2013 study of Israeli combat soldiers showed that those predisposed to avoid threats—an inclination associated with a variant of a gene that controls the transport of serotonin, a transmitter of nerve signals—may be at greater risk of PTSD.
But two other newly published studies—one conducted in Norway, the other in Timor-Leste (the former Indonesian colony of East Timor)—show that previous exposure to abuse, violence, or war may dramatically increase the risk of the disorder.
[For more of this story, written by Josie Glausiusz, go to http://theamericanscholar.org/following-combat-and-civilian-traumas/#.U9l0bfldUue]
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