A robust coordinated molecular response following trauma promotes recovery and protects against chronic pain and neuropsychiatric symptoms

Recovery from adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae across ten domains is linked to a shared, temporally coordinated transcriptional program, captured by an RNA-based Recovery Score.

• Why it matters: Mechanisms that distinguish recovery from chronicity of APNS are unclear, limiting prevention strategies for multiple outcomes like pain, anxiety, and depression.
• What they did: The study tracked longitudinal molecular changes in trauma survivors across ten APNS domains, then built and externally validated an RNA-based Recovery Score (RRS) from the recovery-associated transcriptional signature.
• The result: Higher RRS aligns with greater clinical recovery, elevated peritraumatic cortisol, and lower cumulative stress exposure, and drug-response profiling suggests compounds that may mimic recovery-like transcriptional changes.

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