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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Post-traumatic stress disorder risk and brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met
Lei Zhang, Xiao-Xia Li, Xian-Zhang Hu, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Supported by Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Lei Zhang, MD, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States. lezhang@usuhs.mil
Telephone: +1-301-2950921 Fax: +1-301-2950923
Received: September 2, 2015
Peer-review started: September 8, 2015
First decision: October 16, 2015
Revised: October 23, 2015
Accepted: December 18, 2015
Article in press: December 21, 2015
Published online: March 22, 2016
Peer-review started: September 8, 2015
First decision: October 16, 2015
Revised: October 23, 2015
Accepted: December 18, 2015
Article in press: December 21, 2015
Published online: March 22, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which regulates neuronal survival, growth differentiation, and synapse formation, is known to be associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the molecular mechanism for those mental disorders remains unknown. In this paper, we reviewed these data to discuss BDNF as a potential biomarker for PTSD risk and its possible roles in the onset of PTSD.