Progress in mechanism and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops after individual exposure to one or more traumatic events.Natural disasters and war are the major primers of PTSD.Tt is affracting more attention due to the high prevalence in war veterans and natural disasters.The risk factors range from gender,environment to physiology.Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays an important role in stress reaction and dysfunction of HPA axis leads to disorder of neuroendocrine.In addition,chronic inflammation,including adaptive and innate immune response disorder,has been reported in many PTSD studies.Neural imaging studies have found that there are significant changes in the brain structure and neural circuits of PTSD patients.However,the biological mechanism underlying PTSD is largely unknown.Currently,based on the clinic symptoms of PTSD patients,anti-depression and anxiety drugs are the first choice for treatment,but the outcomes are diverse.Some potential therapeutic drugs or avenues that are derived from the identified targets are still under investigation.In this review,we overview and summarize the biological changes of PTSD,focusing on disorder of neuroendocrine,chronic inflammation,brain structure and circuits changes and therapeutic strategies in clinical and preclinical trials.This review aims to will provide new ideas for revelation of PTSD mechanisms and develop novel therapies.