With June being Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) awareness month, I wanted to take a closer look at PTSD and what is happening in the brain. What is PTSD? Who does it affect? And what is the correlation between PTSD and addiction? The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 7.7 million Americans, 18 years and older, suffer from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to Science Daily, the number of self-reported PTSD cases has tripled among combat-exposed military personal since 2001.
PTSD is a type of anxiety disorder. It can be a debilitating condition that can occur after an individual is exposed to a terrifying event in which physical harm was threatened, perceived or occurred. Examples of these might be a rape, mugging, car accident, military combat, or natural or man-made disaster. Symptoms include re-experiencing the traumatic event through memory, flashbacks, or nightmares, as well as avoidance and emotional numbing, anxiety, depression, and inability to handle stress. Increased arousal often occurs with difficulty falling asleep or concentrating, irritability or outbursts of anger, hyper-vigilance, and feeling jumpy or easily startled. In order to find more comprehensive ways of treating the disorder, we must look at what is physically happening in the brain.
Much of this comes down to the reward and pleasure brain chemical that we talk so much about: dopamine. In response to stressful situations, the brain experiences a surge of adrenaline. The brain will then flood itself with dopamine to naturally calm the fight or flight response. There is ten times more dopamine in the brain during stressful situations. However, the brain is unable to differentiate between situations, and in the case of PTSD sufferers, will continue to flood the system with dopamine. Eventually, as is the case with addiction and how drugs and alcohol affect dopamine levels in the brain, PTSD over-stimulation damages, down regulates, or desensitizes the dopamine receptors until they are unable to support themselves with their own chemicals. As a result, an individual will experience stronger symptoms of depression, anxiety, the inability to handle stress, and more. In an attempt to “feel normal,” many PTSD sufferers will also turn to drugs or alcohol to self-medicate, which further exacerbates the problem.
