New research might help people suffering from post-traumatic
stress disorder The discovery of a mechanism in the brain
explains for the first time why people make particularly strong,
long-lasting memories of stressful events in their lives and
could help sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. The
study, carried out by researchers from the University of
Bristol's Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative
Neuroscience & Endocrinology (HW-LINE) in the School of Clinical
Sciences, and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), is published online this week
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The research found that stress hormones directly stimulate
biochemical processes in neurons that play a role in learning
and memory. The way these hormones stimulate these signalling
and epigenetic processes in neurons is completely new and has
never been shown before. In the healthy brain these processes
operate smoothly and help people to cope with and l