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Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say drugs created to suppress appetite can also be good at preventing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the centre from the scientific studies are ghrelin, what many refer to as the “hunger hormone.”
When this substance was found to trigger appetite in humans, many drug manufacturers go about creating drugs to bar the biochemical as a way to prevent obesity. Yet as MIT researchers kept digging to better understand ghrelin, they discovered that it’s not just accountable for triggering hunger: it’s also released during bouts of chronic stress.
Now, researchers claim that if military troops are given a dose of ghrelin as they get into battle, they may be better suited to protect themselves against the risk of PTSD. The new research paper, compiled by assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences Ki Goosens and up to date graduate Retsina Meyer also claims ghrelin energizes the secretion of a growth hormones but does not work in the same way as other stress hormones.
Their paper is published in the online journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Goosens says their scientific studies are particularly exciting because no drug happens to be being issued to prevent PTSD.
When experienced in normal conditions, stress isn’t completely harmful. When stress becomes chronic, however, it can result in anxiety, depression along with other mental illnesses. A recent study published in the journal BMJ Open, for example, found that women who experienced several stressful moments in the middle of their lives were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
It’s been previously understood that a area of the brain which causes humans to feel fear may also react to chronic stress. Unlike any other portion of the brain, the amygdala responds to common stress by releasing a particular growth hormone. Goosens and team now say ghrelin triggers the amygdala to produce this hormone, that is made in the stomach after which spreads through the rest of the body.
To test the effects of this hormone, the MIT researchers fed lab rats with drugs that either stimulated the ghrelin receptor or which overloaded them with growth hormone over an extended time period. These rats were then trained to be afraid of the particular sound played by the researchers within the laboratory. A dark tone, they say, was mostly innocuous but could freeze the rats with fear. The animals which were fed the ghrelin receptor drug and the growth hormones drug were more prone to freeze when they heard the sound, a reaction which the researchers say indicates fear.
When the researchers reversed the drug therapy and started blocking the rats’ receptors to ghrelin or the growth hormones, these were no more so afraid of a dark tone. The rats reacted in the same manner those who had endured traumatic experiences in life do, said Goosens.
“When you’ve people with past stress who encounter a traumatic event, they’re more prone to develop PTSD because that good reputation for stress has altered something about their biology. They have an excessively strong memory from the traumatic event, and that is one thing that drives their PTSD symptoms,” said assistant professor Goosens.
The researchers then wondered if ghrelin seemed to be accountable for the “fight or flight” hormone which is triggered in moments where adrenaline runs high. This mechanism is triggered with a response in the adrenals in rats, but when animals with this particular gland removed were administered ghrelin, they still became frightened. This indicates that ghrelin and adrenaline act independently of 1 another, allowing researchers to build up stress therapies specifically designed to address ghrelin.
