Other ancient works, such as those by Hippocrates, describe soldiers who experienced frightening battle dreams. This blindness, brought on by fright and not a physical wound, persisted over many years. account of the battle of Marathon, Greek historian Herodotus describes how an Athenian named Epizelus was suddenly stricken with blindness while in the heat of battle after seeing his comrade killed in combat. Gilgamesh is tormented by the trauma of Enkidu’s death, experiencing recurrent and intrusive recollections and nightmares related to the event. Long before the dawn of modern psychiatry, people and situations depicting PTSD may have been recorded in early works of literature.įor example, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest surviving major work of literature (dating back to 2100 B.C.), the main character Gilgamesh witnesses the death of his closest friend, Enkidu. Over time, PTSD changes the brain, including by causing the part of the brain that handles memory (the hippocampus) to shrink. People with PTSD continue to produce high amounts of these hormones outside of dangerous situations and their amygdala-the part of the brain that handles fear and emotion-is more active than people without PTSD. That is, traumatic events put the body into a survival “fight or flight” mode, in which body releases stress hormones (adrenaline and norepinephrine) to provide a burst of energy while pausing some of the brain’s other tasks, such as filling short-term memories. It’s not entirely known what causes PTSD to develop, but it may be related to the stress hormones.
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