ArticleClinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society2023
Sex differences in Black Veterans with PTSD: women versus men have higher sympathetic activity, inflammation, and blunted cardiovagal baroreflex sensitivity.
Article in Clinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of trauma and how to intervene: a narrative review of psychotraumatology over the past 15 years.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Research Progress on Inflammation and Immune Dysregulation in PTSD.Brain and behavior · 2025Review
- Cardiovascular Consequences of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Exaggerated Vasoconstrictor Responsiveness to Personalized Trauma Recall.Biological psychiatry · 2024Article
- Blunted brachial blood flow velocity response to acute mental stress in PTSD females.Physiological reports · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposePost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with greater risk of incident hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Inflammation and autonomic derangements are suggested as contributing mechanisms. Women and Black adults have higher CVD risk associated with stress; however, whether there is a sex difference in autonomic and inflammatory mechanisms among Black individuals with PTSD is not known. We hypothesized that Black women with PTSD have higher inflammation, sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity and impaired baroreflex sensitivity (BRS).
methodsIn 42 Black Veterans with PTSD (Women, N = 18 and Men, N = 24), we measured inflammatory biomarkers, continuous blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) at rest and during arterial BRS testing via the modified Oxford technique.
resultsGroups were matched for age and body mass index (BMI). Resting BP was similar between groups, but HR was higher (76 ± 12 vs. 68 ± 9 beats/min, p = 0.021) in women compared to men. Although women had lower PTSD symptoms severity (57 ± 17 vs. 68 ± 12 a.u.), resting MSNA (27 ± 13 vs. 16 ± 5 bursts/min, p = 0.003) was higher in women compared to men, respectively. Likewise, cardiovagal BRS was blunted (p = 0.002) in women (7.6 ± 4.3 ms/mmHg) compared to men (15.5 ± 8.4 ms/mmHg) while sympathetic BRS was not different between groups (p = 0.381). Black women also had higher (p = 0.020) plasma levels of interleukin-2 (IL-2).
conclusionBlack women with PTSD have higher resting HR and MSNA, greater impairment of cardiovagal BRS and possibly higher inflammation. These findings suggest a higher burden of autonomic and inflammatory derangements in Black women compared to Black men with PTSD.
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