The study compared cognition, amyloid-β, tau, regional brain metabolism and volumes, and the effect of APOE in 83 veterans with and without PTSD defined by the Clinician's Administered PTSD Scale.
U.S. military veterans who are APOE ε4 allele carriers and exposed to a high number of traumas may be at increased risk for developing PTSD symptoms than ε4 noncarriers.
Three hundred and forty-three US veterans were genotyped for apoE and were assessed for their lifetime trauma exposure (trauma score, T) and severity of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PCL).
Our study showed a significant association between the APOE e4 gene variant and increased risk for developing combat-related PTSD, with an overall effect size of d equal to 0.28 (95% confidence interval: 0.10-0.45) for e4 carriers versus noncarriers.
These findings suggest that PL profiles, together with APOE genotyping, could potentially aid to differentiate diagnosis of mTBI and PTSD and warrant further validation.
In this study, we began to elucidate these associations by examining the effects of apoE on PTSD severity in combat veterans, and on PTSD-like behavior in mice with human apoE.
Although preliminary, these findings suggest that the APOE ε4 allele, in conjunction with exposure to high levels of combat exposure, may increase veterans' risk for developing PTSD.
The authors investigated the associations between APOE allele status, memory function, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity in PTSD subjects.