Sex Differences in the Association between Cortical Thickness and Children's Behavioral Inhibition.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Aim
To investigate sex differences in the association between cortical thickness and behavioral inhibition of 9-10 years old American children.Materials and methods
This cross-sectional investigation used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Baseline ABCD data of 10249 American children between ages 9 and 10 were analyzed. The independent variable was cortical thickness measured by structural brain magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI). The primary outcome, behavioral inhibition, was measured based on the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), and behavioral approach system (BAS). Sex was the moderator. Age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status indicators, and intracranial volume were covariates.Results
In the overall sample, high cortical thickness was not associated with behavioral inhibition in children. Sex showed a statistically significant interaction with cortical thickness's effect on children's behavioral inhibition, net of all confounders. The interaction indicated a statistically stronger positive effect of high cortical thickness on male behavioral inhibition compared to female children.Conclusion
Cortical thickness is a determinant of behavioral inhibition for male but not female American children. Male but not female children show better behavioral inhabitation at higher levels of cortical thickness.
SUBMITTER: Assari S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7685294 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:BackgroundBasal cortisol concentrations vary between men and women. Likewise, previous findings suggest stress-related cortical thickness alterations. Thus, we aimed at elucidating sex differences in the association between serum cortisol concentrations and cortical thickness.MethodsData of 2594 participants (55.55% male; mean age = 53.55 years ± 13.17 years) of the general population were used to investigate sex differences in basal serum cortisol concentrations and associations of serum cortisol concentrations with global and regional cortical thickness. The validity of the results was tested by including sex hormone concentrations as a biological and childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms as a psychological confounder.ResultsBasal serum cortisol concentrations were higher in men than in women (β = -0.158, t(2575) = -6.852, p = 9.056e-12). Sex differences in serum cortisol concentrations were diminished by including serum concentrations of testosterone, estrone, or estradiol in the models. In men but not in women, serum cortisol concentrations were inversely associated with the global cortical thickness (men: β = -0.064, t(1412) = -3.010, p = .003; women: β = -0.016, t(1131) = -0.607, p = .544). Additionally, these effects were observed in eleven cortical regions after adjusting for multiple testing. The associations were independent of childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms.ConclusionSex differences in serum cortisol concentrations and the association between serum cortisol concentrations and cortical thickness suggest important sex-specific effects of stress on the brain. Future studies should integrate the interaction between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis in sex-stratified analyses.
| S-EPMC8578044 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Behavioral inhibition (BI) during early childhood predicts risk for anxiety disorders and altered cognitive control in adolescence. Although BI has been linked to variation in brain function through adulthood, few studies have examined relations between early childhood BI and adult brain structure.The relation between early childhood BI and cortical thickness in adulthood was examined in a cohort of individuals followed since early childhood (N = 53, mean age 20.5 years). Analyses tested whether anxiety and/or cognitive control during adolescence moderated relations between BI and cortical thickness. Cognitive control was measured with the Eriksen Flanker Task. Initial analyses examined cortical thickness in regions of interest previously implicated in BI, anxiety disorders, and cognitive control: dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC), anterior insula (aI), and subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC); and volumes of the amygdala and hippocampus. Exploratory analyses examined relations across the prefrontal cortex.BI during early childhood related to thinner dACC in adulthood. Neither anxiety nor cognitive control moderated this relation. A stronger congruency effect on the Eriksen Flanker Task during adolescence independently related to thinner dACC in adulthood. Higher anxiety during adolescence related to thicker cortex in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) in adulthood among those with low BI as children.Temperament in early childhood and the interaction between temperament and later anxiety relate to adult brain structure. These results are consistent with prior work associating BI and anxiety with functional brain variability in the dACC and VLPFC.
| S-EPMC4724382 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The study aimed to investigate sex differences in the boosting effects of household income on children's executive function in the US. This is a cross-sectional study using data from Wave 1 of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Wave 1 ABCD included 8608 American children between ages 9 and 10 years old. The independent variable was household income. The primary outcome was executive function measured by the stop-signal task. Overall, high household income was associated with higher levels of executive function in the children. Sex showed a statistically significant interaction with household income on children's executive function, indicating a stronger effect of high household income for female compared to male children. Household income is a more salient determinant of executive function for female compared to male American children. Low-income female children remain at the highest risk regarding poor executive function.
| S-EPMC7643890 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background & aimsRegional reductions in gray matter (GM) have been reported in several chronic somatic and visceral pain conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic pancreatitis. Reported GM reductions include insular and anterior cingulate cortices, even though subregions are generally not specified. The majority of published studies suffer from limited sample size, heterogeneity of populations, and lack of analyses for sex differences. We aimed to characterize regional changes in cortical thickness (CT) in a large number of well phenotyped IBS patients, taking into account the role of sex related differences.MethodsCortical GM thickness was determined in 266 subjects (90 IBS [70 predominantly premenopausal female] and 176 healthy controls (HC) [155 predominantly premenopausal female]) using the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) Pipeline. A combined region of interest (ROI) and whole brain approach was used to detect any sub-regional and vertex-level differences after removing effects of age and total GM volume. Correlation analyses were performed on behavioral data.ResultsWhile IBS as a group did not show significant differences in CT compared to HCs, sex related differences were observed both within the IBS and the HC groups. When female IBS patients were compared to female HCs, whole brain analysis showed significant CT increase in somatosensory and primary motor cortex, as well as CT decrease in bilateral subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC). The ROI analysis showed significant regional CT decrease in bilateral subregions of insular cortex, while CT decrease in cingulate was limited to left sgACC, accounting for the effect of age and GM volume. Several measures of IBS symptom severity showed significant correlation with CT changes in female IBS patients.ConclusionsSignificant, sex related differences in CT are present in both HCs and in IBS patients. The biphasic neuroplastic changes in female IBS patients are related to symptom severity.
| S-EPMC3764047 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Bipolar disorder (BD) is a psychiatric disorder with high morbidity and mortality that cannot be distinguished from major depressive disorder (MDD) until the first manic episode. A biomarker able to differentiate BD and MDD could help clinicians avoid risks of treating BD with antidepressants without mood stabilizers.Cortical thickness differences were assessed using magnetic resonance imaging in BD depressed patients (n = 18), MDD depressed patients (n = 56), and healthy volunteers (HVs) (n = 54). A general linear model identified clusters of cortical thickness difference between diagnostic groups.Compared to the HV group, the BD group had decreased cortical thickness in six regions, after controlling for age and sex, located within the frontal and parietal lobes, and the posterior cingulate cortex. Mean cortical thickness changes in clusters ranged from 7.6 to 9.6% (cluster-wise p-values from 1.0 e-4 to 0.037). When compared to MDD, three clusters of lower cortical thickness in BD were identified that overlapped with clusters that differentiated the BD and HV groups. Mean cortical thickness changes in the clusters ranged from 7.5 to 8.2% (cluster-wise p-values from 1.0 e-4 to 0.023). The difference in cortical thickness was more pronounced when the subgroup of subjects with bipolar I disorder (BD-I) was compared to the MDD group.Cortical thickness patterns were distinct between BD and MDD. These results are a step toward developing an imaging test to differentiate the two disorders.
| S-EPMC4047134 | biostudies-other
Project description:BACKGROUND:Evidence suggests that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes involved in serotonergic signaling and stress response pathways moderate associations between PTSD and cortical thickness. This study examined a genetic regulator of these pathways, the PPM1F gene, which has also been implicated in mechanisms of stress responding and is differentially expressed in individuals with comorbid PTSD and depression compared to controls. METHODS:Drawing from a sample of 240 white non-Hispanic trauma-exposed veterans, we tested 18 SNPs spanning the PPM1F gene for association with PTSD and cortical thickness. RESULTS:Analyses revealed six PPM1F SNPs that moderated associations between PTSD symptom severity and cortical thickness of bilateral superior frontal and orbitofrontal regions as well as the right pars triangularis (all corrected p's < 0.05) such that greater PTSD severity was related to reduced cortical thickness as a function of genotype. A whole-cortex vertex-wise analysis using the most associated SNP (rs9610608) revealed this effect to be localized to a cluster in the right superior frontal gyrus (cluster-corrected p < 0.02). LIMITATIONS:Limitations of this study include the small sample size and that the sample was all-white, non-Hispanic predominately male veterans. CONCLUSIONS:These results extend prior work linking PPM1F to PTSD and suggest that variants in this gene may have bearing on the neural integrity of the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
| S-EPMC6791735 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ImportanceSchizophrenia is a complex heritable disorder associated with many genetic variants, each with a small effect. While cortical differences between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls are consistently reported, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive.ObjectiveTo investigate the extent of shared genetic architecture between schizophrenia and brain cortical surface area (SA) and thickness (TH) and to identify shared genomic loci.Design, setting, and participantsIndependent genome-wide association study data on schizophrenia (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and CLOZUK: n = 105 318) and SA and TH (UK Biobank: n = 33 735) were obtained. The extent of polygenic overlap was investigated using MiXeR. The specific shared genomic loci were identified by conditional/conjunctional false discovery rate analysis and were further examined in 3 independent cohorts. Data were collected from December 2019 to February 2021, and data analysis was performed from May 2020 to February 2021.Main outcomes and measuresThe primary outcomes were estimated fractions of polygenic overlap between schizophrenia, total SA, and average TH and a list of functionally characterized shared genomic loci.ResultsBased on genome-wide association study data from 139 053 participants, MiXeR estimated schizophrenia to be more polygenic (9703 single-nucleotide variants [SNVs]) than total SA (2101 SNVs) and average TH (1363 SNVs). Most SNVs associated with total SA (1966 of 2101 [93.6%]) and average TH (1322 of 1363 [97.0%]) may be associated with the development of schizophrenia. Subsequent conjunctional false discovery rate analysis identified 44 and 23 schizophrenia risk loci shared with total SA and average TH, respectively. The SNV associations of shared loci between schizophrenia and total SA revealed en masse concordant association between the discovery and independent cohorts. After removing high linkage disequilibrium regions, such as the major histocompatibility complex region, the shared loci were enriched in immunologic signature gene sets. Polygenic overlap and shared loci between schizophrenia and schizophrenia-associated regions of interest for SA (superior frontal and middle temporal gyri) and for TH (superior temporal, inferior temporal, and superior frontal gyri) were also identified.Conclusions and relevanceThis study demonstrated shared genetic loci between cortical morphometry and schizophrenia, among which a subset are associated with immunity. These findings provide an insight into the complex genetic architecture and associated with schizophrenia.
| S-EPMC8223140 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) is 50-70% heritable with complex genetic underpinnings. In addition to Apoliprotein E (APOE) ?4, the major genetic risk factor, recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a growing list of sequence variations associated with the disease. Building on a prior large-scale AD GWAS, we used a recently developed analytic method to compute a polygenic score that involves up to 26 independent common sequence variants and is associated with AD dementia, above and beyond APOE. We then examined the associations between the polygenic score and the magnetic resonance imaging-derived thickness measurements across AD-vulnerable cortex in clinically normal (CN) human subjects (N = 104). AD-specific cortical thickness was correlated with the polygenic risk score, even after controlling for APOE genotype and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of ?-amyloid (A?(1-42)). Furthermore, the association remained significant in CN subjects with levels of CSF A?(1-)(42) in the normal range and in APOE ?3 homozygotes. The observation that genetic risk variants are associated with thickness across AD-vulnerable regions of interest in CN older individuals, suggests that the combination of polygenic risk profile, neuroimaging, and CSF biomarkers may hold synergistic potential to aid in the prediction of future cognitive decline.
| S-EPMC3464416 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The impact of stress hormones, such as cortisol, on the brain is proposed to contribute to differences in executive function of school-age children from impoverished backgrounds. However, the association between cortisol reactivity, prefrontal cortex, and executive function is relatively unexplored in young children. The current longitudinal study examined whether 63 children's early preschool-age (3-5 years, Time 1) and concurrent school-age (5-9 years, Time 2) salivary cortisol reactivity were associated with executive function and prefrontal cortical thickness at school-age. Two measures of cortisol reactivity were calculated: area under the curve with respect to ground (AUCg; total cortisol release) and with respect to increase (AUCi; total change in cortisol). Results demonstrated that Time 2 total cortisol release was negatively associated with executive function, Time 1 total cortisol release positively related to right middle frontal cortical thickness, and Time 2 total cortisol change was negatively associated with right inferior frontal cortical thickness. Moreover, greater right middle frontal cortical thickness mediated the association between greater Time 1 total cortisol release and lower executive function. This study provides support for an early adversity framework in which individual differences in executive function in childhood are directly related to the variations of cortisol-release and the effects on the prefrontal cortex thickness.
| S-EPMC8040966 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDespite emerging evidence suggesting that visceral fat may play a major role in obesity-induced neurodegeneration, little evidence exists on the association between visceral fat and brain cortical thickness in the elderly.PurposeWe aimed to examine the association between abdominal fat and brain cortical thickness in a Korean elderly population.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included elderly individuals without dementia (n = 316). Areas of visceral fat and subcutaneous fat (cm2) were estimated from computed tomography scans. Regional cortical thicknesses (mm) were obtained by analyzing brain magnetic resonance images. Given the inverted U-shaped relationship between visceral fat area and global cortical thickness (examined using a generalized additive model), visceral fat area was categorized into quintiles, with the middle quintile being the reference group. A generalized linear model was built to explore brain regions associated with visceral fat. The same approach was used for subcutaneous fat.ResultsThe mean (standard deviation) age was 67.6 (5.0) years. The highest quintile (vs. the middle quintile) group of visceral fat area had reduced cortical thicknesses in the global [β = -0.04 mm, standard error (SE) = 0.02 mm, p = 0.004], parietal (β = -0.04 mm, SE = 0.02 mm, p = 0.01), temporal (β = -0.05 mm, SE = 0.02 mm, p = 0.002), cingulate (β = -0.06 mm, SE = 0.02 mm, p = 0.01), and insula lobes (β = -0.06 mm, SE = 0.03 mm, p = 0.02). None of the regional cortical thicknesses significantly differed between the highest and the middle quintile groups of subcutaneous fat area.ConclusionThe findings suggest that a high level of visceral fat, but not subcutaneous fat, is associated with a reduced cortical thickness in the elderly.
| S-EPMC8261238 | biostudies-literature