Demystifying the genetic mechanism of mental illness: women are more susceptible than men

Not long ago, people with mental syndromes such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often became confused by the lack of relevant knowledge and fell into fear and despair. Fortunately, advances in psychiatry and molecular medicine have enabled psychiatric clinicians to diagnose PTSD symptoms accurately and quickly, using various forms of therapeutic intervention to help patients return to normal mental conditions. However, the underlying biological mechanisms that lead to diseases such as PTSD are still a major problem facing the academic community and are elusive.

Note: PTSD refers to the individual's delay, appearance, or persistence after an individual experiences, witnesses, or encounters one or more actual deaths involving himself or others, or is threatened by death, or serious injury, or threatened by physical integrity. The mental disorder that exists. The incidence of PTSD is reported differently, and women are more likely to develop PTSD than men.

Now, a new study in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium reveals the impact of genetic factors on diseases such as PTSD. The study extended previous findings and demonstrated some common genetic overlaps between PTSD and other mental disorders including schizophrenia. In addition, the new study also found that the genetic risk of women with PTSD is relatively higher.

A corresponding article in this study is published in the latest Molecular Psychiatry journal entitled "Largest GWAS of PTSD (N=20,070) yields genetic overlap with schizophrenia and sex differences in heritability".

The main author of the article, Karestan Koenen, professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, director of the Global Neuropsychiatric Genomics Program and senior researcher, said: "Based on a large amount of research data, we found a large number of prisoners of war, rape victims, etc. People in extreme trauma events do not have PTSD symptoms in the future. We believe that genetic variation is an important risk factor for the development of PTSD."

Currently, approximately one in nine women and one in 20 men in the United States have PTSD symptoms under certain conditions. These include a large number of post-war veterans, natural disaster victims, violent crime victims and the well-known Lady Gaga all suffering from PTSD. The social impact of this mental illness is very large, increasing the suicide rate, hospitalization rate and drug abuse rate of the whole society.

The Koenen team's genome-wide association study (GWAS) brings together research data from more than 20,000 people from 11 ethnic groups around the world. Based on twin studies with smaller scale fine studies. The researchers found that 29% of PTSD cases in European and American women are closely related to genetic factors. In contrast, males have a significantly lower genetic risk of PTSD.