“Post-traumatic stress disorder can make the bravest soldier, police officer or chaplain curl up and cry, explode with rage, or drown in drink, remembering something they saw or did when only chance seemed to separate life and death. The disorder probably has been around as long as war itself. The earliest recorded reference to it is by the ancient Greeks. About 30 percent of Vietnam veterans were afflicted with PTSD, and many of those veterans are still receiving therapy. ”

— Don Terry, Chicago Tribune

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are generating new cases of PTSD, and a Carthage professor is participating in research projects intended to discover why some soldiers have recurring reactions to stimuli that remind them of stressful wartime situations, while others don’t; and what can be done to prevent or treat such reactions.

“One thing we see in humans confronted with a traumatic event is that one person can be haunted by that drama for decades, while another goes on and lives life normally,” says Daniel Miller, a professor of psychology and neuroscience.

Prof. Miller is working with the Stress and Motivated Behavior Institute, headed by Rick Servatius, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The two professors have known each other for years.

“I will be reading neurobehavioral research proposals from the United States Army and providing feedback on the methodological and ethical implications of the research,” Prof. Miller says.

In exchange for reading the proposals, the Institute provides a research grant to Carthage that will be used to teach students how to do basic research on the neuroscience of stress.

Neuroscience 250, a required course for all neuroscience majors, now includes a project studying how rats respond to stress. Several students will continue the study this summer.

“Once they’ve been exposed to a traumatic situation, some rats have exaggerated behavioral responses during the trauma, and those responses persist long after we remove the traumatic situation,” Prof. Miller says.
Prof. Miller met with Mr. Servatius last summer at the Society for Neuroscience convention in San Diego.
“He has a staff of 40 at the hospital in New Jersey, but he has too many projects for those people,” Prof. Miller explains. “Rick said, ‘I know the quality of your students, and I have a series of projects that are perfect for undergraduates like yours.’ We’ve had a pretty steady stream of students going into graduate work in neuroscience or biomedical science.”

Other popular career progressions for neuroscience majors at Carthage are medical school, professional degrees such as occupational therapy and speech pathology, and employment with pharmaceutical firms.
“This project and the follow-ups we have planned are ideal for undergraduates,” Prof. Miller says. “The students will learn critical neuroscience skills and they will collect data that will be published in respected neuroscience journals. I do very little of the hands-on research. This is all about teaching students, so they can do hands-on work.”

Neuroscience major Laura Garcia-Rodriguez, ’08, is the laboratory assistant who tests rats’ reaction to a local anesthetic that puts an area of the brain to sleep for a few hours, to observe the effect on stress response. Last summer, as a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience participant, she worked on a similar research project seeking potential causes for Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s a great experience,” Laura says of working with Prof. Miller. “He taught me how to love research, and how to have the patience to be in a lab eight hours a day. We have vast opportunities here.”

Laura commutes to the College from Waukegan, Ill., and has played four years of soccer for the Lady Reds. She will attend medical school, either at the University of Illinois-Chicago or the Medical College of Wisconsin.
“Doing the research made me a better candidate for medical school,” Laura says. “I’d tell anybody who has the opportunity to do research to take the chance, even if it’s time-consuming, because it will help you for any post-graduate field.”

Prof. Miller, who came to Carthage in 1994, tries to get close to his students, and takes pride in their accomplishments.

“Most professors like to get journal articles published,” he says. “I say my students are my publications. It’s really great to see them become successful.”

Besides research opportunities for Carthage students, Prof. Miller cites other benefits his association with the Stress and Motivated Behavior Institute will bring to the College.

“Through this collaboration I have become a faculty member of the SMBI, which involves a $10,000 grant of unrestricted funds for my research at Carthage each year that I remain a member of the Institute,” he points out. “We have received this year’s award, and I plan to fund two students for summer research and to purchase equipment for the project.”

The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder estimates that 12-20 percent of troops returning from Iraq are suffering from PTSD. Dr. John Mundt, who heads the day hospital program at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, told the Chicago Tribune that caring for those afflicted with PTSD “is going to be tremendously expensive.”

Dr. Mundt estimated that for every soldier killed by a roadside bomb, at least five comrades saw it happen.
“They will be our clients,” he predicted.

Prof. Miller says the goal of his project is helping soldiers deal with stress during battle and after the fact.