Dataset Information

Perceived Stress Is Differentially Related to Hippocampal Subfield Volumes among Older Adults.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Chronic exposure to stress has been shown to impact a wide range of health-related outcomes in older adults. Despite extensive animal literature revealing deleterious effects of biological markers of stress on the dentate gyrus subfield of the hippocampus, links between hippocampal subfields and psychological stress have not been studied in humans. This study examined the relationship between perceived stress and hippocampal subfield volumes among racially/ethnically diverse older adults.

Methods and materials

Between July 2011 and March 2014, 116 nondemented participants were consecutively drawn from the Einstein Aging Study, an ongoing community-based sample of individuals over the age of 70 residing in Bronx, New York. All participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, and underwent 3.0 T MRI. FreeSurfer was used to derive total hippocampal volume, hippocampal subfield volumes (CA1, CA2/CA3, CA4/Dentate Gyrus (CA4/DG), and subiculum), entorhinal cortex volume, whole brain volume, and total intracranial volume.

Results

Linear regression analyses revealed that higher levels of perceived stress were associated with smaller total hippocampal volume (? = -0.20, t = -2.40, p = 0.02), smaller CA2/CA3 volumes (? = -0.18, t = -2.24, p = 0.03) and smaller CA4/DG volumes (? = -0.19, t = -2.28, p = 0.03) after controlling for total intracranial volume, age, gender, and race. These findings remained unchanged after removal of individuals with clinically significant symptoms of depression.

Discussion

Our findings provide evidence of a relationship between a direct indicator of psychological stress and specific hippocampal subfield volumes in elderly individuals. These results highlight the importance of clinical screening for chronic stress in otherwise healthy older adults.

SUBMITTER: Zimmerman ME

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4856349 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Perceived Stress Is Differentially Related to Hippocampal Subfield Volumes among Older Adults.

Zimmerman Molly E ME Ezzati Ali A Katz Mindy J MJ Lipton Michael L ML Brickman Adam M AM Sliwinski Martin J MJ Lipton Richard B RB

PloS one 20160504 5

<h4>Introduction</h4>Chronic exposure to stress has been shown to impact a wide range of health-related outcomes in older adults. Despite extensive animal literature revealing deleterious effects of biological markers of stress on the dentate gyrus subfield of the hippocampus, links between hippocampal subfields and psychological stress have not been studied in humans. This study examined the relationship between perceived stress and hippocampal subfield volumes among racially/ethnically diverse ...[more]

PMID: 27144832

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Project description:BackgroundThe human hippocampus comprises a number of interconnected histologically and functionally distinct subfields, which may be differentially influenced by cerebral pathology. Automated techniques are now available that estimate hippocampal subfield volumes using in vivo structural MRI data. To date, research investigating the influence of cerebral β-amyloid deposition-one of the earliest hypothesised changes in the pathophysiological continuum of Alzheimer's disease-on hippocampal subfield volumes in cognitively normal older individuals, has been limited.MethodsUsing cross-sectional data from 408 cognitively normal individuals born in mainland Britain (age range at time of assessment = 69.2-71.9 years) who underwent cognitive assessment, 18F-Florbetapir PET and structural MRI on the same 3 Tesla PET/MR unit (spatial resolution 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1. mm), we investigated the influences of β-amyloid status, age at scan, and global white matter hyperintensity volume on: CA1, CA2/3, CA4, dentate gyrus, presubiculum and subiculum volumes, adjusting for sex and total intracranial volume.ResultsCompared to β-amyloid negative participants (n = 334), β-amyloid positive participants (n = 74) had lower volume of the presubiculum (3.4% smaller, p = 0.012). Despite an age range at scanning of just 2.7 years, older age at time of scanning was associated with lower CA1 (p = 0.007), CA4 (p = 0.004), dentate gyrus (p = 0.002), and subiculum (p = 0.035) volumes. There was no evidence that white matter hyperintensity volume was associated with any subfield volumes.ConclusionThese data provide evidence of differential associations in cognitively normal older adults between hippocampal subfield volumes and β-amyloid deposition and, increasing age at time of scan. The relatively selective effect of lower presubiculum volume in the β-amyloid positive group potentially suggest that the presubiculum may be an area of early and relatively specific volume loss in the pathophysiological continuum of Alzheimer's disease. Future work using higher resolution imaging will be key to exploring these findings further.

Dataset Information

Perceived Stress Is Differentially Related to Hippocampal Subfield Volumes among Older Adults.

Introduction

Methods and materials

Results

Discussion

Publications

Perceived Stress Is Differentially Related to Hippocampal Subfield Volumes among Older Adults.

Similar Datasets

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