Break Accumulation Originating from Traumatic Stress

subdivided into 11 trauma-exposed subjects and 20 individ-uals without trauma exposure. In a second study, we anal-ysed the effect of psychotherapy (Narrative Exposure Thera-py) on DNA breakage and repair. Thirty-eight individuals with PTSD were randomly assigned to either a treatment or a waitlist control condition. Follow-up was performed 4 months and 1 year after therapy. Results: In study 1 we found higher levels of basal DNA breakage in individuals with PTSD and trauma-exposed subjects than in controls, in-dicating that traumatic stress is associated with DNA break-age. However, single-strand break repair was unimpaired in individuals with PTSD. In study 2, we found that psychother-apy reversed not only PTSD symptoms, but also DNA strand break accumulation. Conclusion: Our results show – for the first time in vivo – an association between traumatic stress and DNA breakage; they also demonstrate changes at the molecular level, i.e., the integrity of DNA, after psychothera-peutic interventions. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel Key Word