Biomarkers in an Animal Model for Revealing Neural, Hematologic, and Behavioral Correlates of PTSDMin Jia 1, Fei Meng 2, Stanley E. Smerin 1, Guoqiang Xing 1, Lei Zhang 1, David M. Su 2, David Benedek 1, Robert Ursano 1, Yan A. Su 2, He Li 1
1Department of Psychiatry, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, 2Department of Gene and Protein Biomarkers, GenProMarkers, Inc.
We describe a rat model of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that reveals the persistent alterations in neuroendocrine function and the delayed long-term, exaggerated fear response, characteristic of PTSD patients. The animal model and methods described here are useful for correlating biomarkers in brain nuclei, which are mechanistic but cannot be measured in patients, with biomarkers in peripheral white blood cells, which can.
