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Trauma Exposure and Stress Response: Exploration of Mechanisms of Cause and Effect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Kerry L. Jang*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. [email protected]
Steven Taylor
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Murray B. Stein
Affiliation:
University of California , San Diego, United States of America.
Shinji Yamagata
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
*
*Address for correspondence: Kerry L. Jang, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, 2255 Wesbrook Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 2A1.

Abstract

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People differ markedly in their risk for developing posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) after exposure to traumatic events. Twin studies suggest that the trauma-PTSS relationship is moderated by genetic and environmental influences. The present study tested for specific types of genetic and environmental interaction effects on PTSS. A sample of 222 monozygotic and 184 dizygotic twin pairs reported on lifetime frequency of assaultive and nonassaultive trauma and associated PTSS. Biometric analyses indicated that in the case of nonassaultive trauma, PTSS were directly affected by environmental factors that also influence exposure to nonassaultive trauma. For assaultive trauma both genetic and non-shared environmental influences jointly affected PTSS, and the number of traumatic events moderated the severity of PTSS. Genetic factors were found to become less important beyond some threshold (e.g., 3 or 4 types of serious trauma) suggesting that genetic factors — which may confer either risk or resilience to PTSS — modify these symptoms within a range of human experience, beyond which environmental effects supervene.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007