Financial Times; Feb 19, 2003
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY & ASIA-PACIFIC: Brain chemical that aids elite troops
By Clive Cookson in Denver
Scientists have identified a natural brain chemical that gives elite soldiers the "right stuff" to withstand the stress of battle without suffering serious psychological trauma.
Experiments at the US Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, have shown that members of the special forces produce much more of the chemical, Neuropeptide Y, than regular soldiers when they are under duress.
Matthew Friedman, director of the US government's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), described the research to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Blood tests were carried out on military personnel as they underwent a rigorous survival course that involved intensive interrogation and incarceration in a mock prisoner-of-war camp.
All participants produced high levels of stress hormones but the most striking finding was that special forces - Green Berets - maintained higher levels of Neuropeptide Y than others undergoing the same training.
Neuropeptide Y performs several roles in the brain, one of which is to help keep focused on a task under stress. "It is part of a counter-regulatory system that the brain uses to calm itself down," said Dr Friedman.
During the experiments at Fort Bragg, the Green Berets not only made more Neuropeptide Y but also showed fewer psychological signs of stress. "Others, who produced less Neuropeptide Y, performed very poorly in the training and looked a lot more anxious and frazzled at the end," said Andy Morgan, who was in charge of the project for the National Center for PTSD.
The Fort Bragg results had been replicated at two naval training sites, said Dr Morgan. "We can now argue convincingly that Neuropeptide Y, or drugs that work like it, act as anti-anxiety or anti-stress agents," he said.
"At this point, we need to figure out how to develop these agents so we can use them with people who suffer from PTSD. There may come a time when replenishing Neuropeptide Y is a normal procedure when a person comes back from a stressful situation, in the same way that you would feed him if he had been malnourished."
Alternatively, said Dr Friedman, "we might be able to train people to produce more of their own Neuropeptide Y in stressful situations."
A blood test for Neuropeptide Y production could also be incorporated into the selection procedure for extremely stressful jobs.