Reduction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex gray matter in late-life depression.

Postmortem studies have documented abnormalities in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in depressed subjects. In this study we used magnetic resonance imaging to test for dlPFC volume differences between older depressed and non-depressed individuals. Eighty-eight subjects meeting DSM IV criteria for major depressive disorder and thirty-five control subjects completed clinical evaluations and cranial 3T magnetic resonance imaging. After tissue types were identified using an automated segmentation process, the dlPFC was measured in both hemispheres using manual delineation based on anatomical landmarks. Depressed subjects had significantly lower gray matter in the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (standardized to cerebral parenchyma) after controlling for age and sex. Our study confirmed the reduction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in elderly depressed subjects, especially in the gray matter. These regional abnormalities may be associated with psychopathological changes in late-life depression.

The COMT Val158Met polymorphism and temporal lobe morphometry in healthy adults.

We examined the relationship between COMT Val158Met genotype and temporal lobe volumes, including the caudate as a control region. Thirty-one healthy subjects completed 1.5T brain MRI and genotyping. After controlling for demographics, Val158 allele homozygotes exhibited significantly smaller temporal lobe and hippocampal volumes, with a trend for smaller amygdala volumes.

Temporal lobe volume in bipolar disorder: relationship with diagnosis and antipsychotic medication use.

BACKGROUND: We tested for differences in temporal lobe volume in bipolar disorder and the relationship between these volumes and psychotropic medication use. METHODS: 125 subjects with bipolar disorder and 87 comparison subjects with no psychiatric illness completed clinical interviews and 1.5T MRI brain scans. Temporal lobe volumes were manually traced and segmented into gray matter and white matter volumes using an automated process. General linear models examined the relationship between these volumes and diagnosis as the primary predictor with age, sex, education, and race as copredictors. Secondary analyses incorporated the use of psychotropic medication into the linear models, and parsimonious models developed through backwards regression. RESULTS: In initial models, subjects with bipolar disorder exhibited larger temporal lobe white matter bilaterally (left: F(1,211)=2.86, p=0.0047; right: F(1,211)=3.25, p=0.0014). Current antipsychotic use was significantly associated with larger bilateral temporal lobe white matter volumes (left: F(2,211)=9.45, p=0.0001; right: F(2,211)=10.79, p<0.0001), wherein bipolar subjects taking antipsychotics had larger volumes than bipolar subjects not taking antipsychotics or healthy comparison subjects. Temporal lobe gray matter volume was not significantly associated with diagnosis or medication use. LIMITATIONS: Excluding subjects with substance use disorders may limit the study's generalizability. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that differences in temporal lobe white matter are associated with bipolar disorder and use of antipsychotic medications.

Aging, gender, and the elderly adult brain: an examination of analytical strategies.

We sought to examine the relations between age, gender and brain volumes in an elderly population; we also sought to examine ways of measuring these relations. Three sets of analyses were used: correlational analyses, in which correlations between independent variables and brain volumes were calculated without correction for intracranial volume (ICV); covariational analyses, in which ICV was used as a covariate in regression equations; and ratio analyses, in which the dependent variable was the ratio of brain volume to ICV. These analyses yielded similar results, except that (as expected) adjusting for ICV altered estimates of gender differences. Analyses of age showed decreases in left caudate, putamen, and right hippocampus and an increase in CSF, a result generally in accord with previous findings. However, we also found a significant decrease of white-matter volumes and no significant decrease in total gray-matter volumes. Correlational analyses showed that men did not always have larger volumes despite their larger head size; women generally had larger volumes after adjusting for ICV. We found no age-gender interactions.