Stress shrank brain area of tsunami survivors: study

"Will this shrinkage change with age?" Once the crisis event has passed and the individual has regained some sense of control and feelings of security, will it return to normal?

Too many thoughts come to (my shrunken) mind. Not least of which is the logisitics and cost of doing this study in the midst of the devestation in the region.

Wakarimasen,

Since the hospital doing the study is in Sendai and the 42 patients also lived in Sendai, rest assured that neither the cost nor the logistics were particularly onerous. The payout, though, might be of great benefit to both 3/11 survivors and other PTSD sufferers. I'm glad science can learn from even a disaster like 3/11.

This is not cool, keep this information to medical circles, making a press release about it makes a mockery of these poor people that the government is trying to forget about.

None of the 42 had been diagnosed with full-blown PTSD, but displayed symptoms to various degrees of severity.

Okay, this is complete nonsense. One either meets all the diagnostic criteria for a DSM-IV diagnosis or one does not. In medicine there is no, "You're a little bit pregnant", or "You almost have cancer". The same applies to mental disorders. Something is either severe enough to merit the diagnosis or it lies within the normal range of human behaviour and is not a disorder.

Frankly this is either an example of shockingly bad reporting or research that is so flawed that it meaningless.

Really? It's too sensitive topic. Because I think it may cause discrimination of survivors.

there is some mathematical validity to generalize to a broad population from our data”.

Generalization in science is not science it is speculation.

This study seems to lack any base-line controls as far as their 42 subjects are concerned. What were the parts of the subjects' brain like before the tsunami occurred?

Japan is the most stressful of nations I have lived in -it is hard to imagine what a 'normal' brain in this country would look like!

Around 30,000 people that take their lives every year are testament to my last comment-the number increased last year too.........

Hope the damage is reversible. They've had enough bad things happen to them over the past year and a half...

First discrimination against these survivors for perhaps being contaminated by radiation, and now this??

a part of the brain involved in decision-making and the regulation of emotion,

If this is even remotely true the guy suing TEPCO for his wife's suicide should use this report as part of his lawsuit. It helps researchers and medical folks to understand that physically there are explanations to whys and maybe can lead to treatments to assist those in deep depression.

Also it should be covered heavily by the media and the government should use it as an opportunity to educate folks that mental health issues need not be viewed with the stigmatization that it has today.

Why is it discrimination? The sooner people realise that mental illness is as serious as physical illness, the better. We no longer live in an age where people are thought to be possessed by evil spirits, when physically ill. It's about time that people accept mental illness as something more than an embarrassment, it's a real problem and should be treated as such.

The DSM-IV diagnosis is simplified to help psychologists and psychiatrists. Plenty of people don't fit exactly into the diagnostic criteria, because mental illness isn't an exact science. The brain is far too complicated to compartmentalise into various exact conditions. It's fuzzy science, like if you judge by eye if a glass is half full, maybe it's a little less or more, but in the end it doesn't make much difference.

nico00May. 23, 2012 - 08:44PM JST The DSM-IV diagnosis is simplified to help psychologists and psychiatrists. Plenty of people don't fit exactly into the diagnostic criteria, because mental illness isn't an exact science. The brain is far too complicated to compartmentalise into various exact conditions. It's fuzzy science, like if you judge by eye if a glass is half full, maybe it's a little less or more, but in the end it doesn't make much difference.

So if someone has a high fever does that automatically mean they have a cold? Because the body is "far too complicated to compartmentalise into various exact conditions". Frankly it's clear that you know nothing about medicine. Diagnosis is a bit of an art, but it's a free-for-all. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean you can ignore it.