Seeing trauma triggers changes in the brain

New research reveals that witnessing trauma triggers unique brain changes, distinct from those caused by experiencing trauma firsthand.

For years, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been studied primarily in people who experience trauma firsthand. But what about those who witness it—military veterans, first responders, health care workers, or bystanders to violence—who constitute 10% of all PTSD cases?

The new study is the first to shed light on the molecular differences between directly acquired PTSD and bystander PTSD and could pave the way for changes in how the disorders are treated.

“Currently, patients with directly acquired PTSD and bystander PTSD are treated the same way—with a combination of therapy and medication,” says Timothy Jarome, the project’s principal investigator and associate professor of neurobiology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

“Our research suggests that indirect trauma and direct trauma create different biological responses, which could mean they require different treatment strategies that target distinct brain pathways.”

Jarome’s research focuses on understanding the neurobiological mechanisms behind memory-related disorders, including PTSD, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. His interest in bystander PTSD arose after learning about PTSD symptoms reported in people who witnessed the deadly 2021 collapse of a Miami condominium.

“People who saw it from across the street reported that they were suffering from nightmares, insomnia, and anxiety,” he says.

“They were showing symptoms of PTSD, but didn’t go through it or have any connection to the people in the building. We sought out to understand the brain mechanisms behind how that occurred.”

For the study, researchers focused on protein changes caused by a fear stimulus in three key brain regions involved in fear memory: the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the retrosplenial cortex. They discovered that witnessing trauma triggered distinct protein degradation patterns in all three regions, compared to directly experiencing trauma.

Additionally, they uncovered sex-specific differences in how male and female brains process indirect fear memories. These findings build on previous research from Jarome’s lab, which identified a specific protein, known as K-63 ubiquitin, linked to PTSD development in women.

“Our findings highlight significant biological differences in how male and female brains respond to witnessing trauma,” says the paper’s lead author, Shaghayegh Navabpour, a former PhD student in translational biology, medicine, and health who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

“These differences may help explain why women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD, leading to more targeted treatments that consider these sex-specific factors.”

In future research, Jarome hopes to explore how these how these molecular pathways could be leveraged to develop more precise PTSD therapies. He also hopes to examine the role of empathy, which originates in a different brain region called the anterior insular cortex, in bystander PTSD.

The research appears in in PLOS ONE.

The research was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Source: Virginia Tech

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