Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) usually afflicts people after a sudden life threatening trauma. Most soldiers in service often suffer from PTSD after they return from combat zone. PTSD can be diagnosed easily symptomatically.

The recent studies by researchers at Duke University in the US suggest that PTSD could soon be diagnosed through brain scans. Researchers examined brains of some 40 US soldiers who had returned from combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their brains were put under MRI scanner while they performed memory tests. The brain activity for those suffering from PTSD and others who did not was different. The research paper will soon go to the World Psychiatric Association congress in Florence.

It is not difficult to diagnose PTSD from symptoms alone. There isn’t a need for brain scan. But it is indeed interesting to be able to map brain activity of people afflicted with PTSD. This gives newer insight into the working of human brains. Since most psychiatric patients are usually in denial may be MRI brain scans will become a norm in future to confirm the diagnosis and treat psychiatric ailments.

Via BBC