Study identifies genes linked to post-traumatic stress disorder
Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - 02:30
in Health & Medicine
UCLA researchers studying DNA from Armenian quake victims find two specific genetic variations that contribute to post-traumatic stress disorder.Just before noon on a December morning in 1988, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake shook over 40% of the territory of Armenia, centered in the northern city of Spitak. The temblor leveled entire towns and cities, killed an estimated 25,000 Armenians — two-thirds of them children trapped and crushed in their crumbling schools — and hastened the dissolution of the Soviet Union, of which Armenia was then a part.