Veteran studies how evolution shapes PTSD

PTSD is usually seen as a harmful reaction to life threatening events, with symptoms that last for at least a month. Veteran U.S. Army Ranger Michael Baumgarten is a current evolutionary anthropology PhD student who is researching how evolution plays a role in PTSD. 

There’s still a lot we don’t understand about PTSD. For example, why people experience PTSD in different ways, and how some symptoms don’t quite fit into standard medical definitions.

Michael Baumgarten, an Affiliated Graduate Student at the Institute of Human Origins, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss his research and how his ideas from evolution might help explain these missing pieces.

“That experience during the global war on terror informed a lot of things that I’ve done in my life,” Baumgarten explained as he served in the military for roughly 11 years.

“…loss of close friends, not just during service but then afterwords,” Baumgarten said. “…seeing that happen I started developing some questions, found a place at ASU where someone was actually working on that.”

According to Baumgarten, PTSD is defined as a set of symptoms that persist after a traumatic event that lasts for approximately for 30 days or more.

Baumgarten’s recent research with ASU overlooked a group in Northern Kenya called the “Turkana.” They are a semi-nomadic group dependent on live stock herding while also engaging in sanctioned inner group cattle raiding. In some cases the raiding can become lethal.

“They are a unique population that is culturally very different than us,” Baumgarten explain, “…but has a high level of combat exposure and mortality from these raids.