PTSD and suPAR: A multicohort investigation of chronic inflammation.
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2025-10
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Abstract
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with poor health. Prior research has shown stressful events are associated with inflammatory biomarkers, such as soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), suggesting systemic chronic inflammation could be a mechanism linking adversity to poor health. In this study, we examined associations of PTSD and suPAR in two research cohorts-the E-Risk Study (United Kingdom; n = 1,389) and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (New Zealand; n = 927)-and a clinical cohort of medical patients (Denmark; n = 29,285). We also present results from two commonly assessed inflammatory biomarkers: C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). People with a lifetime history of PTSD had higher suPAR at age 18 in E-Risk (β = 0.21, p = 0.046) and age 38 in the Dunedin Study (β = 0.23, p = 0.025), but not age 45 in the Dunedin Study (β = 0.18, p = 0.050). Individuals who developed PTSD in the year prior to age 45 in Dunedin had significant increases in suPAR from age 38 to 45 (β = 0.45, p = 0.034). Danish patients with a recent diagnosis of PTSD or a stress-related psychiatric disorder had higher levels of suPAR compared to propensity score-matched patients without such diagnoses (0.10 < βs < 0.24, ps < 0.05). CRP and IL-6 did not show consistent associations with PTSD. These results suggest that PTSD is associated with suPAR and that systemic chronic inflammation could help explain how trauma and PTSD might result in poor health.
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Bourassa, Kyle J, Terrie E Moffitt, Louise Arseneault, Ashleigh Barrett-Young, Andrea Danese, Melanie E Garrett, Renate Houts, Timothy Matthews, et al. (2025). PTSD and suPAR: A multicohort investigation of chronic inflammation. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 131. p. 106159. 10.1016/j.bbi.2025.106159 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33574.
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Scholars@Duke
Kyle Bourassa
Kyle Bourassa is a Staff Psychologist in the Research Service of the Durham VA Medical System, a Snior Research Fellow and Affiliate Faculty at Georgetown University in the Department of Psychology, and a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development at Duke University Medical Center
Terrie E. Moffitt
Terrie E. Moffitt, Ph.D., is the Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor of Psychology at Duke University, and Professor of Social Development at King’s College London. Her expertise is in the areas of longitudinal methods, developmental theory, mental disorders and antisocial behaviors, neuropsychology, and genomics in behavioral science. She is currently uncovering the consequences of a lifetime of mental and behavioral disorder on processes of aging. She is the Associate Director of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which follows a 1972 birth cohort in New Zealand. She also co-founded the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), which follows a 1994 birth cohort in the UK. Dr. Moffitt also is a licensed clinical psychologist, with specialization in neuropsychological assessment. She collaborates with criminologists, economists, geneticists, epidemiologists, sociologists, demographers, gerontologists, statisticians, neuroscientists, medical scientists, opthalmologists, and dentists. Dr. Moffitt is a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , as well as the British Academy, Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), Academia Europa, Association of Psychological Science, and the American Society of Criminology. She holds honorary doctorates from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and Universitat Basel, Switzerland. For her research, Dr. Moffitt has received both the American Psychological Association's Early Career Contribution Award and Distinguished Career Award. Dr. Moffitt was also awarded a Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award, the Klaus-Grawe Prize, and was a recipient of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, NARSAD Ruane Prize, the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, and in 2022 the Grawemeyer Prize. Her service includes serving as chair of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Science at NASEM, Chair of the NIA Data Monitoring Committee for the Health and Retirement Study, and Chair of the Jury for the Klaus J. Jacobs Prize in Switzerland. Dr. Moffitt attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her undergraduate degree in psychology. She continued her training in psychology at the University of Southern California, receiving an M.A. in experimental animal behavior, and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She also completed postdoctoral training in geriatrics and neuropsychology at the University of California Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Institute. In her spare time, she works on her poison-ivy farm in North Carolina.
Jean Crowell Beckham
Interest in assessment and treatment of trauma, particularly as occurs for both women and men during military service; focus in treatment outcome of differential and collective contribution for psychopharmacological and behavioral interventions in PTSD populations; long term physical health effects of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder.
Allison Elizabeth Ashley-Koch
My work focuses on the dissection of human traits using multi-omic technologies (genetics, epigenetics, metabolomics and proteomics). I am investigating the basis of several neurological and psychiatric conditions such as neural tube defects and post-traumatic stress disorder. I also study modifiers of sickle cell disease.
Nathan Andrew Kimbrel
My primary areas of interest include the etiology, assessment, and treatment of PTSD, depression, suicide, and non-suicidal self-injury. I primarily work with veterans, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel due to their high levels of occupational exposure to traumatic stress. I also have long-standing interests in genetics, epigenetics, GxE research, personality, smoking, comorbidity, and statistical modeling procedures, such as CFA, SEM, and mixture modeling.
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