Increased Myelin in Brain’s Gray Matter Linked to Anxiety and PTSD

A recent study links anxiety behavior in rats, as well as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military veterans, to increased myelin — a substance that expedites communication between neurons — in areas of the brain associated with emotions and memory.

The results, reported by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco (UCSF), provide a possible explanation for why some people are resilient and others vulnerable to traumatic stress, and for the varied symptoms — avoidance behavior, anxiety and fear, for example — triggered by the memory of such stress. If, as the researchers suspect, extreme trauma causes the increased myelination, the findings could lead to treatments — drugs or behavioral interventions — that prevent or reverse the myelin production and lessen the aftereffects of extreme trauma. Myelin is a layer of fatty substances and proteins that wraps around the axons of neurons — essentially, the insulation around the brain’s wiring — to facilitate long-distance transmission of signals and, thus, communication between distant areas of the brain. The inner regions of the brain look white — in fact, they are referred to as “white matter” — because of the myelin encasing the many large bundles of axons there. Read more...

Back to Health & Medicine