Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Risk For Dementia

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that PTSD is associated with higher risk for neurodegenerative disorders. However, the mechanism which drives this relationship and the question of whether the increased risk pertains to the full spectrum of all neurodegenerative disorders is not known. Given that neurodegeneration, as with most illnesses, is caused by complex gene by environment factors, PTSD may be an important disorder to study given that trauma exposure is a large impact environmental exposure.