Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

PTSD Linked To Smaller Part Of Brain

Post traumatic stress disorder may be linked to a smaller brain area regulating fear and anxiety response. That's the finding of a new study from researchers at Duke. Psychiatry professor Raj Morey works at Duke and the Durham VA. He's the lead author of the study. Morey says in 200 recent combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, a region of the brain called the amygdala was smaller in those suffering from PTSD. That could mean soldiers with smaller amygdalas are more vulnerable to the disorder.

Raj Morey: Amygdala volume would not be the only explanation for a vulnerability. There would probably be a whole host of factors that would constitute a vulnerability. I think this is just one piece of that puzzle that we will try to create to kind of define what are all the factors that constitute a vulnerability.

Morey says eventually, a knowledge of all those factors could make it possible to target treatment more effectively.

Isaac-Davy Aronson is WUNC's morning news producer and can frequently be heard on air as a host and reporter. He came to North Carolina in 2011, after several years as a host at New York Public Radio in New York City. He's been a producer, newscaster and host at Air America Radio, New York Times Radio, and Newsweek on Air.
More Stories