UNSW. Australia: Childhood trauma is understood to be a significant risk factor for
developing a psychotic or mood disorder later in life. But how does this
trauma change our brain’s stress response systems and contribute to
mental ill-health?
Finding the answer to this is the focus of a
new NHMRC-funded research project led by UNSW researcher, Associate
Professor Melissa Green.
Green’s research will identify how
trauma-induced changes in gene function affect the stress and
immune-related systems in people with psychotic and mood disorders.
“The
potential cascade triggered by early abuse likely contributes to the
way our bodies and brain learn to respond to stress,” Green says, who is
currently on an international fellowship at the Netherlands Institute
for Advanced Study, collaborating with Dutch researchers at Leiden
University.
“Identifying markers of trauma on the genome in people
with psychosis who have been exposed to childhood trauma will help us
better understand how psychotic disorders develop by this route.”
“These individuals may require different or additional treatments such as those used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Green’s
earlier research found that schizophrenia patients who carried a
specific type of genetic variant, and who were exposed to childhood
trauma, showed worse impairments in cognition and more severe psychotic
symptoms than other schizophrenia patients.
“We believe this finding could also be relevant to some people with bipolar or other mood disorders.”
Green
is now conducting a study of people with schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder to compare genetic changes among people with and without
exposure to childhood trauma.
Preliminary analysis of the 230
individuals recruited into the study has shown high rates of childhood
trauma in patients with schizophrenia (58%) and bipolar disorder (43%).
“We
can already see from our preliminary analyses of brain imaging data
that the people exposed to trauma have different patterns of brain
function than those without such history, and this may be further
related to genetic variation that we are yet to investigate,” Green
says.
“Crucially, this research requires a further 60 patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder to participate.”