Abstract
Traumatic stress can alter allostatis and therefore mediate the development of psychological disorders. Recent evidence from molecular studies has shown that telomere length - a measure of cellular aging - is strongly influenced by a broad spectrum of stress. Telomere erosion might be accelerated by traumatic stress, and traumatic stress has shown to be associated with the risk of developing chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases and immunologic conditions. Aim: The biological pathways between psychological stress and psychological disorders or physiological diseases are widely unknown. Some experimental studies in animal models and longitudinal studies in humans have investigated the transgenerational consequences of psychological stress on telomere length biology. Telomere length inheritance might provide an additional molecular mechanism for the germ line transmission of environmentally induced phenotypic change and might offer a new biological framework for the multifactorial path etiology underlying stress-related disorders. Procedure: Starting from the well-established allostatic load model, this article reviews theoretical and empirical work from animal models and humans in the field of telomere biology in association with traumatic stress, childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders. Further it reviews recent approaches on telomere length inheritance, and combines these findings with transgenerational research of post-traumatic stress disorder biology. Conclusion: A better understanding of the transgenerational mechanisms underlying common diseases might ultimately help disease prevention of stress related disorders in subsequent generations.
Highlights
In the last few decades, research has focused strongly on identifying biomarkers that are associated with stress- and trauma-related disorders
Besides the importance stress-related research, telomere length (TL) might be a useful biomarker in transgenerational psychobiological research and a potential target for a number of medical and bio psychosocial interventions
Three findings underline the idea that TL is an optimal candidate for transgenerational Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) research: a) TL is highly inherent and heritable, stressing a transgenerational approach b) high amounts of stress preceded the development of PTSD, which is likely to influence TL maintenance as discussed above, and c) PTSD induces subsequent life-stress and arousal, which is why it is likely to contribute to TL maintenance
Summary
In the last few decades, research has focused strongly on identifying biomarkers that are associated with stress- and trauma-related disorders. In the AL model, an organism’s need to meet its external demands (i.e., environmental influences perceived as stress) is termed allostasis This short review discusses the possibility of transgenerational inheritance of stress- and trauma-related telomere length (TL) shortening as a molecular outcome according to the AL model. We will present a number of findings from transgenerational telomere biology and associate it to stress-related research (including traumatic stress) to present a new hypothesis in the field of psycho-biological research: TL shortening is a primary result of psychological stress, and possibly a biological mediator for stress inheritance to subsequent generations Overall, this short review addresses a new aspect of the biological framework and etiology of stress-related disorders and explores implications for the prevention
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