Limbic scars: Long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment revealed by functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging
Biological Psychiatry, 11/28/2011
Clinical Article
Dannlowski Udo et al. – Childhood maltreatment is associated with remarkable functional and structural changes even decades later in adulthood. These changes strongly resemble findings described in depression and PTSD. The present results might suggest that limbic hyperresponsiveness and reduced hippocampal volumes could be mediators between the experiences of adversities during childhood and the development of emotional disorders.
Methods- 148 healthy subjects
- Enrolled via public notices and newspaper announcements and were carefully screened for psychiatric disorders
- Amygdala responsiveness was measured by means of functional MRI and an emotional face–matching paradigm particularly designed to activate the amygdala in response to threat–related faces
- Voxel–based morphometry was used to study morphological alterations
- Childhood maltreatment assessed by 25–item Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ)
- Strong association of CTQ scores with amygdala responsiveness to threat–related facial expressions
- Morphometric analysis yielded reduced gray matter volumes in the hippocampus, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate gyrus, and caudate in subjects with high CTQ scores
- Associations were not influenced by trait anxiety, depression level, age, intelligence, education, or more recent stressful life events
