Structural Connectivity of the Developing Human Amygdala
نویسندگان
چکیده
A large corpus of research suggests that there are changes in the manner and degree to which the amygdala supports cognitive and emotional function across development. One possible basis for these developmental differences could be the maturation of amygdalar connections with the rest of the brain. Recent functional connectivity studies support this conclusion, but the structural connectivity of the developing amygdala and its different nuclei remains largely unstudied. We examined age related changes in the DWI connectivity fingerprints of the amygdala to the rest of the brain in 166 individuals of ages 5-30. We also developed a model to predict age based on individual-subject amygdala connectivity, and identified the connections that were most predictive of age. Finally, we segmented the amygdala into its four main nucleus groups, and examined the developmental changes in connectivity for each nucleus. We observed that with age, amygdalar connectivity becomes increasingly sparse and localized. Age related changes were largely localized to the subregions of the amygdala that are implicated in social inference and contextual memory (the basal and lateral nuclei). The central nucleus' connectivity also showed differences with age but these differences affected fewer target regions than the basal and lateral nuclei. The medial nucleus did not exhibit any age related changes. These findings demonstrate increasing specificity in the connectivity patterns of amygdalar nuclei across age.
منابع مشابه
An investigation of the structural, connectional, and functional subspecialization in the human amygdala.
Although the amygdala complex is a brain area critical for human behavior, knowledge of its subspecialization is primarily derived from experiments in animals. We here employed methods for large-scale data mining to perform a connectivity-derived parcellation of the human amygdala based on whole-brain coactivation patterns computed for each seed voxel. Voxels within the histologically defined h...
متن کاملAlterations in amygdala–prefrontal circuits in infants exposed to prenatal maternal depression
Prenatal exposure to maternal depression is common and puts offspring at risk for developing a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite its prevalence and adverse associations, neurobiological processes by which prenatal maternal depression (PMD) confers risk remain poorly understood. Maternal mood and fetal behavior were assessed between 34 and 37 gestational weeks. Using resting-state fun...
متن کاملFunctional and structural connectivity of the amygdala in obsessive-compulsive disorder
BACKGROUND The amygdala is known to be involved in anxiety processing, but its role in the psychopathology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still unclear. AIMS In this MRI study we investigated potential alterations in structural and functional connectivity of the amygdala in 42 adult patients with OCD and 37 healthy subjects. METHOD Psychophysiological interaction analysis was use...
متن کاملDeconstructing white matter connectivity of human amygdala nuclei with thalamus and cortex subdivisions in vivo
Structural alterations in long-range amygdala connections are proposed to crucially underlie several neuropsychiatric disorders. While progress has been made in elucidating the function of these connections, our understanding of their structure in humans remains sparse and non-systematic. Harnessing diffusion-weighted imaging and probabilistic tractography in humans, we investigate connections ...
متن کاملStructural and functional bases of inhibited temperament.
Children born with an inhibited temperament are at heightened risk for developing anxiety, depression and substance use. Inhibited temperament is believed to have a biological basis; however, little is known about the structural brain basis of this vulnerability trait. Structural MRI scans were obtained from 84 (44 inhibited, 40 uninhibited) young adults. Given previous findings of amygdala hyp...
متن کامل