Dataset Information

Elevated Amygdala Activity in Young Adults With Familial Risk for Depression: A Potential Marker of Low Resilience.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Amygdala overactivity has been frequently observed in patients with depression, as well as in nondepressed relatives of patients with depression. A remaining unanswered question is whether elevated amygdala activity in those with familial risk for depression is related to the presence of subthreshold symptoms or to a trait-level vulnerability for illness.

Methods

To examine this question, functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected in nondepressed young adults with (family history [FH+]) (n = 27) or without (FH-) (n = 45) a first-degree relative with a history of depression while they viewed images of "looming" or withdrawing stimuli (faces and cars) that varied in salience by virtue of their apparent proximity to the subject. Activation of the amygdala and 2 other regions known to exhibit responses to looming stimuli, the dorsal intraparietal sulcus (DIPS) and ventral premotor cortex (PMv), were measured, as well as levels of resilience, anxiety, and psychotic and depressive symptoms.

Results

Compared with the FH- group, the FH+ group exhibited significantly greater responses of the amygdala, but not the dorsal intraparietal sulcus or ventral premotor cortex, to looming face stimuli. Moreover, amygdala responses in the FH+ group were negatively correlated with levels of resilience and unrelated to levels of subthreshold symptoms of psychopathology.

Conclusions

These findings indicate that elevated amygdala activity in nondepressed young adults with a familial history of depression is more closely linked to poor resilience than to current symptom state.

SUBMITTER: Barbour T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7448615 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Elevated Amygdala Activity in Young Adults With Familial Risk for Depression: A Potential Marker of Low Resilience.

Barbour Tracy T Holmes Avram J AJ Farabaugh Amy H AH DeCross Stephanie N SN Coombs Garth G Boeke Emily A EA Wolthusen Rick P F RPF Nyer Maren M Pedrelli Paola P Fava Maurizio M Holt Daphne J DJ

Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging 20191106 2

<h4>Background</h4>Amygdala overactivity has been frequently observed in patients with depression, as well as in nondepressed relatives of patients with depression. A remaining unanswered question is whether elevated amygdala activity in those with familial risk for depression is related to the presence of subthreshold symptoms or to a trait-level vulnerability for illness.<h4>Methods</h4>To examine this question, functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected in nondepressed young ad ...[more]

PMID: 31948836

Similar Datasets

Project description:We previously reported a 90% decreased risk in major depression, assessed prospectively, in adult offspring of depressed probands who reported that religion or spirituality was highly important to them. Frequency of church attendance was not significantly related to depression risk. Our previous brain imaging findings in adult offspring in these high-risk families also revealed large expanses of cortical thinning across the lateral surface of the right cerebral hemisphere.To determine whether high-risk adults who reported high importance of religion or spirituality had thicker cortices than those who reported moderate or low importance of religion or spirituality and whether this effect varied by family risk status.Longitudinal, retrospective cohort, familial study of 103 adults (aged 18-54 years) who were the second- or third-generation offspring of depressed (high familial risk) or nondepressed (low familiar risk) probands (first generation). Religious or spiritual importance and church attendance were assessed at 2 time points during 5 years, and cortical thickness was measured on anatomical images of the brain acquired with magnetic resonance imaging at the second time point.Cortical thickness in the parietal regions by risk status.Importance of religion or spirituality, but not frequency of attendance, was associated with thicker cortices in the left and right parietal and occipital regions, the mesial frontal lobe of the right hemisphere, and the cuneus and precuneus in the left hemisphere, independent of familial risk. In addition, the effects of importance on cortical thickness were significantly stronger in the high-risk than in the low-risk group, particularly along the mesial wall of the left hemisphere, in the same region where we previously reported a significant thinner cortex associated with a familial risk of developing depressive illness. We note that these findings are correlational and therefore do not prove a causal association between importance and cortical thickness.A thicker cortex associated with a high importance of religion or spirituality may confer resilience to the development of depressive illness in individuals at high familial risk for major depression, possibly by expanding a cortical reserve that counters to some extent the vulnerability that cortical thinning poses for developing familial depressive illness.

Dataset Information

Elevated Amygdala Activity in Young Adults With Familial Risk for Depression: A Potential Marker of Low Resilience.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Elevated Amygdala Activity in Young Adults With Familial Risk for Depression: A Potential Marker of Low Resilience.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets