A small but significant percentage of people that experience a traumatic, life-threatening, event develop a condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is characterized by heightened anxiety and disturbed fear processing. The condition is more prevalent in women. Additionally, PTSD is highly comorbid with other psychiatric conditions notably alcohol abuse. We have developed an animal model that captures many of the features of PTSD and as such should be helpful in developing an understanding of the biological changes that produce the disorder and suggesting novel treatments. Here we propose to use a milder stress than we have used in our published work because it produces enhanced fear learning in a smaller proportion of animals (18%) that better approximates the rate of PTSD in humans. The rats subjected to this stress will be tested on a number of measures of anxiety, altered fear processing and alcohol intake. We will use this as a tool to understand how PTSD symptoms group together to form subtypes and how these subtypes relate to the brain changes that cause maladaptive behavior.

Public Health Relevance

In humans Post-Traumatic Stress disorder is highly heterogeneous in terms of the number of individuals that develop symptoms and the suite of symptoms those with the condition express. In animals, stress can enhance subsequent fear learning and we will use differential expression of this behavior as a predictor of anxiety, fear processing and alcohol consumption following a mild stress that produces enhanced fear learning in only a portion of the animals. We will also determine to what extent a number of proteins in the brain predict and cause the heterogeneous behaviors caused by stress.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01AA026530-01
Application #
9484109
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAA1)
Program Officer
Grakalic, Ivana
Project Start
2017-09-12
Project End
2022-07-31
Budget Start
2017-09-12
Budget End
2018-07-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Los Angeles
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
092530369
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90095