Question

Writing prompt:

Choose a review of a psychology journal article. The response should be 2-3 pages, double spaced. The review should be a summary of the findings.

Chosen review article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/4000867

Answer 1

The role of genes and family in trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder

The article talks about the role of genes and family enviornment in PTSD and trauma exposure. In one of the study

it was found that even though group of children were not directly exposed to the life threatning event but still they

have the same amount of effect which resulted in PTSD.

In a study it was found disproportionate risk between trauma exposure and PTSD, suggesting that other

environmental and genetic factors also contribute to one's liability to develop the disorder. Trauma exposure rates

vary between 40–80%, the prevalence rate of PTSD in exposed individuals is only 8%. The study was conducted

on animals and the results showed that fear-conditioning studies in animals are consistent with a model of PTSD in

humans that posits pathological dysfunction within a network of brain regions.

The family study was conducted on Vietnam Era which included both MZ twins and DZ twins to study the genetic

and non genetic factors in PTSD.The results stated that Genetic factors accounted for 36% of the variance in

service in Southeast Asia, 47% of the variance in combat exposure, and 54% of the variance in the likelihood of

receiving a combat medal. In addition, genes accounted for approximately 30% of the variance in liability for most

PTSD symptoms even after differences in concordance for combat exposure between MZ and DZ twin pairs were

accounted for. Also the enviornmental factors did not contributed to the PTSD.

In other study under DSM-IIIR, which was conducted on psychotic mental disorder and non psychotic mental

disorder twinsfound that,PTSD was only in co-twins of anxiety probands and was twice as prevalent in MZ

(20%) vs DZ (7%) twins.

As regards familial susceptibility to PTSD, knowledge derives largely from studies of family history research rather

than genetically informative family designs. Also the study on male military veterans comparing family history of a

PTSD proband group with three other proband groups found that family history variables distinguished PTSD from

the other proband groups.

Aside from twin and family studies, genetic marker studies in PTSD are few, and findings are conflicting. Dopamine

receptor gene (DRD2) exist for various psychiatric disorders including alcoholism, Tourette's syndrome, attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism.While some studies have shown an association between the DRD2 and

PTSD.