PTSD Working Group Leadership
Work with us!
If you have questions regarding the PGC PTSD workgroup or projects that are currently being conducted, please contact the workgroup chairs.
For any questions or ideas related to research dissemination (e.g., via this webpage, social media, blogs, press outlets), please contact the workgroup outreach liaison.
If you have questions about how to access summary statistics or genotype-level data, or are interested to submit a secondary analysis proposal, please contact the workgroup data access committee representative.
About Us
Our History
The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Working Group (PGC-PTSD) was founded in 2013 with the goal of conducting the first meta-analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) data for symptoms and diagnosis of PTSD. During that time, our membership has grown to include data from 60 studies, with over 200 investigators from 12 countries.
Drs. Karestan Koenen, Caroline Nievergelt, Kerry Ressler, and Murray Stein currently chair our group. Our interdisciplinary membership includes graduate and postdoctoral trainees in psychiatric genetics as well as distinguished faculty in Psychology, Genetics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Psychiatry, and Medicine. Working together we have laid the groundwork for our first large-scale GWAS, which will contain over 3,000 cases and 17,000 controls (see PMC4538342) and recently followed this work with a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls (see PMC6783435).
Our Motivation
We are currently looking to increase the number of studies with genotype and clinical information on individuals with PTSD, including those from overlooked ancestry groups. Our current objectives include:
1) Optimize the contribution of diverse ancestry groups in PGC-PTSD to identify causal variants and ensure that advances in our genetic understanding of PTSD extend across ancestral backgrounds.
2) Use post-GWAS approaches to identify functional consequences of variants identified in GWAS meta-analyses and prioritize variants, genes, networks and pathways for functional validation.
3) Use polygenic risk scores (PRS) of PTSD and PTSD components to provide insights into genetic architecture, relation to other disorders, traits and protective factors, and advance causal inference.
Get Involved!
We are also seeking to expand our studies by linking genetic data with copy number variations (CNVs), epigenetics, gene expression, brain imaging, physical health, psychophysiology, systems biology, Electronic Health Records (EHR), traumatic brain injury, substance use disorder, local ancestry and microbiome.
Members of the workgroup stay connected through regular conference calls the third Tuesdays of the month and in-person meetings twice a year at Academic conferences, usually the Society of Biological Psychiatry in the Spring and International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies in the Fall.
If you are a member of the PTSD workgroup and have questions about a specific analysis or if you are interested in joining an ongoing project, please contact Dr. Karestan Koenen. If you are interested in learning about or joining our subgroups, please contact the subgroup directors.
For more information about PGC-PTSD workgroup and the subgroups, please visit https://pgc-ptsd.com/.
PTSD CNV Workgroup
PTSD EWAS Workgroup
PTSD Gene Expression Workgroup
PTSD Imaging Workgroup
PTSD Physical Health Workgroup
PTSD Psychophysiology Workgroup
PTSD Systems Biology Workgroup
PTSD Electronic Health Records Workgroup
PTSD Traumatic Brain Injury Workgroup
PTSD Substance Use Disorder Workgroup
PTSD Local Ancestry Workgroup
PTSD Microbiome Workgroup
Major Accomplishments
Latest Results
Drs. Karestan Koenen, Caroline Nievergelt, Kerry Ressler, and Murray Stein currently chair our group. Our interdisciplinary membership includes graduate and postdoctoral trainees in psychiatric genetics as well as distinguished faculty in Psychology, Genetics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Psychiatry, and Medicine. Working together we have laid the groundwork for our first large-scale GWAS, which will contain over 3,000 cases and 17,000 controls (see PMC4538342) and recently followed this work with a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls (see PMC6783435).
Publications
Logue, M. W., Amstadter, A. B., Baker, D. G., Duncan, L., Koenen, K. C., Liberzon, I., … Uddin, M. (2015). The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Workgroup: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Enters the Age of Large-Scale Genomic Collaboration. Neuropsychopharmacology: Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 40(10), 2287–2297. http://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.118
Duncan LE, Ratanatharathorn A, Aiello AE, et al. Largest GWAS of PTSD (N=20 070) yields genetic overlap with schizophrenia and sex differences in heritability. Mol Psychiatry. 2018;23(3):666‐673. doi:10.1038/mp.2017.77
Nievergelt CM, Maihofer AX, Klengel T, et al. International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex- and ancestry-specific genetic risk loci. Nat Commun. 2019;10(1):4558. Published 2019 Oct 8. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12576-w
Complete publication list
Funders
