Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) continues to be one of the most common mental health disorders in the United States and may occur in response to traumatic experiences. Currently, there are no interventions that prevent the development of PTSD. L-Theanine (L-Th), a major compound in green tea has been found to decrease anxiety and prevent memory impairment and may have potential effects in the prevention of PTSD. Sixty rats were divided into six experimental groups: control vehicle, control L-Th, control naïve, PTSD vehicle, PTSD Pre-L-Th (prophylactic), PTSD Post-L-Th (non-prophylactic). PTSD was induced by a 3-day restraint/tail shock stress model. The effects of L-Th on neurobehavior were evaluated by Elevated Plus-Maze (EPM), Morris Water Maze (MWM), and Forced Swim Test (FST). Our study found that the total food intake weight of PTSD Pre-L-Th (prophylactic) rats were significantly increased compared to that of PTSD vehicle rats (p = .04). Administration of L-Th 24 hours before the initial PTSD event or for 10 days following the last PTSD stress event did not statistically improve mean open arm exploration on the EPM, spatial memory, and learning in the MWM or behavioral despair measured by the FST (p > 0.05). Although the 3-day restraint/tail shock stress model caused stress in the rodents, it did not produce reported PTSD-like anxiety and depression or spatial memory loss. The effect of Pre-L-Th or Post-L-Th treatment, on the neurobehavioral functions could not be effectively evaluated. However, this study provides a foundation for future studies to try different rodent PTSD models to induce PTSD-like neurobehavioral impairments to explore dosage, frequency, as well as the duration of L-Th administration before and/or after the post-traumatic event. The 3-day restraint/tail shock stress model caused stress in the rodents, Pre-L-Theanine treatment preconditioned the PTSD rats to endure stress.
Highlights
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may happen after exposure to traumatic events, which is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in the United States [1]
While the reported lifetime prevalence of PTSD in the United States (US) is about 8.3% [2], higher prevalence rates of PTSD are reported in veterans who served in different combat events
Our study found that rats exposed to PTSD stress lost weight, compared to non-stressed rodents, the PTSD group had lower water and food intake compared to that of the non-stressed rodents, indicating that the rats in the PTSD groups were under chronic stress as shown in our previous work [36]
Summary
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may happen after exposure to traumatic events, which is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in the United States [1]. Longitudinal studies found that many trauma exposed subjects experienced delayed-onset PTSD, which could evolve into a chronic mental health condition [4]. A recent study found that 40 years after the Vietnam War, veterans were still experiencing current full PTSD symptoms [5]. In a study with 5,692 respondents in the US, 82.7% indicated they had experienced exposure to severe and potentially traumatic events, and 8.3% of those exposed to trauma were diagnosed with lifetime PTSD. Across 24-nations study found that as high as 65% of surveyed subjects reported exposure to traumatic events, and 12% of these subjects eventually developed PTSD [6, 7]
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