PTS-ID: Developing Precision Behavioral Health Diagnostics for PTSD

In 2013, a separate diagnosis of PTSD was introduced into the DSM-V to mitigate the well-known issue of accurately differentiating between PSTD and other psychiatric disorders.  In addition to these advancements, the field continuous to develop more quantifiable methodologies, such as biological markers to strengthen the tool set available to clinicians enabling them to distinguish between overlapping conditions. For example, PTSD symptom profile overlaps with those of common mental conditions, such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse, the most common being Major Depressive Disorder. Reasons for why it is important to make a clearer distinction between these two disorders is due to the treatment options available to both. For PTSD, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has consistently been found to be the most effective treatment both in the short term and the long term. Whereas for MDD, monotherapy with antidepressants is recognized by current guidelines as an effective first-line treatment for patients with mild, moderate or even severe major depression.  Since PSTD has shown moderate heritability accountability, identifying the genetic factors that contribute to this susceptibility is of great interest for developing a biological diagnostic tool as the similarities of symptoms between PTSD and MDD may be due in part to shared genetic liability. Nevertheless, manifestation of these underlying mechanisms may also vary due to epigenetic factors. Polaris genomics has developed genetic test panels - PTS-ID DNA and Trugen-1 RNA  for PTSD susceptibility and diagnosis, based on the data from prior research studies. Each panel aims to compliment the other by encompassing a multi-omics approach to study the flow of biological information at multiple levels (in this case: genome; epigenome; transcriptome), thus, unraveling the mechanisms underlying the biological condition of interest, resulting in identification of a reliable predictive and diagnostic biomarker tools for more accurate diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioral health conditions.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Discuss genetic biomarkers related to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

2. Discuss pharmacogenomic biomarkers that impact anti-depressant treatment.

3. Explain how genomics can improve diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioral health disorders.