Childhood rape can cause genetic changes: Study

NEW DELHI: Childhood rape or other traumatic events like car accidents or recurrent abuse can change the genetic functioning of the victim, a new study led by Divya Mehta of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, has found.
Comparing the genetic structure of blood cells drawn from childhood abuse victims with that of persons who had not suffered such abuse, the researchers found that changes in the genes were 12 times more visible in the abused persons.These are called epigenetic changes - the DNA has not changed but there are chemical differences that affect the way the genes do their work. Epigenetic changes are caused by outside circumstances and usually last lifelong.
The study has been published in a recent issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of National Academy of Science (PNAS). Scientists from Emory University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute also participated in the research
Mehta and her colleagues studied 169 persons in their late thirties or early forties. They had suffered from seven traumatic events on an average including rape, being held at knife-point, going through a car accident, etc. While a majority of them (108) had got over the trauma, 61 were suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition where they experienced an extreme anxiety disorder arising from the traumatic event. Of the PTSD patients, 32 had suffered childhood abuse while 29 had not.
"These results show that while these patients have similar or even indistinguishable symptoms on the outside, they are very different on the inside. The molecular mechanism and biological pathways altered among the two sets of patients are distinct," Mehta told TOI.
"Trauma/abuse which occurs very early in life leaves long-lasting epigenetic marks on the genome as compared to trauma which occurs later in life," she added.
This discovery radically changes the way victims of trauma need to be looked at. Not just the symptoms but the path leading to the disease - timing, type of trauma and the preexisting genetic risk factors) are all important according to Mehta.
The research also has major implications for wider psychiatric treatment. One of the reasons why psychiatric treatment has a low success rate could be that patients with different 'biologies', that is, internal genetic structures are all being grouped under one disease, Mehta said.
The study shows that in the future, trauma victims will need to be first checked through blood markers whether they have childhood trauma changes - this will open the door to better more effective customized treatment.