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PTSD leads to changes in brain, study finds

A new study from Brigham Young University may support the idea that post-traumatic stress disorder manifests as a neurological disorder, with research suggesting that adults who suffered PTSD-causing maltreatment as children have reduced volume in the hippocampus.

“The size reduction in the hippocampus seems to occur sometime after the initial exposure to stress or trauma in childhood, strengthening the argument that it has something to do with PTSD itself or the stress exposure,” said Dawson Hedges, an author in the study and a BYU neuroscientist.

Previous studies have shown adults who suffered maltreatment as children had volume deficits in the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with memory, but had not determined if the PTSD caused the deficit or if people born with such a deficit were more at risk for PTSD.

BYU researchers combined previous studies to look at hippocampal volume in maltreated children and found that their brains were similar to a control group of children without PTSD. But when they looked at adults who had suffered maltreatment-related PTSD as children, there were deficits compared to a control group of healthy adults.

Researchers wrote that this suggests “hippocampal volume deficits from childhood maltreatment may not be apparent until adulthood.” They hypothesized that that region of the brain atrophies and doesn’t develop as the children grow into adulthood.

Maltreatment includes sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse and neglect.

The study was published in August edition of Hippocampus journal.