Genetics and Genomics of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex disorder; a range of molecular features likely contributes to individuals’ increased risk for, or resistance to, developing PTSD when exposed to trauma. The focus here is on studies that investigate molecular factors that may be associated with this disorder. This chapter reviews the existing studies on molecular genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression associations with PTSD. This chapter also reviews novel statistical approaches used with genome-, methylome-, and expression-wide data. Future research in this rapidly evolving area should focus on the combined examination of genetic sequence, epigenetic effects, and gene expression to obtain a more complete picture of the systems biology of PTSD.