Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Neuroimage. 2012 Jan 16;59(2):1071-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.09.033. Epub 2011 Oct 1.
Witnessing domestic violence (WDV) is a traumatic childhood experience associated with increased risk for depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and reduced IQ scores. Specific affects of WDV on brain development have not been assessed. We sought to ascertain whether WDV was associated with abnormalities in white matter (WM) tract integrity using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Twenty subjects who witnessed domestic violence (16F/4M, mean age 22.4 ± 2.48 years) but were not physically or sexually abused were compared to 27 healthy controls (19F/8M, 21.9 ± 1.97 years) without exposure to trauma or Axis I and II disorders. DTI images were acquired with a 3T Siemens Trio scanner. Group differences in fractional anisotropy (FA), covaried by age, gender, parental education, perceived financial sufficiency, IQ and degree of exposure to parental verbal aggression were assessed using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS), which projects FA values onto an alignment-invariant fiber tract representation. FA values in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus of left lateral occipital lobe were significantly lower (P<0.05 corrected for multiple comparison) in the WDV group. FA values correlated inversely with ratings of depression, anxiety, somatization, 'limbic irritability' and neuropsychological measures of processing speed. Measures of radial but not axial diffusivity were affected suggesting alterations in myelination. Degree of FA reduction was associated with duration of witnessing interparental verbal aggression and with exposure between ages 7 and 13 years. The inferior longitudinal fasciculus connects occipital and temporal cortex and is the main component of the visual-limbic pathway that subserves emotional, learning and memory functions that are modality specific to vision. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to childhood maltreatment is associated with alterations in fiber pathways that convey the adverse experience to frontal, temporal or limbic regions.
目睹家庭暴力（WDV）是一种创伤性的童年经历，与抑郁、创伤后应激障碍和智商分数降低的风险增加有关。WDV 对大脑发育的具体影响尚未评估。我们试图确定 WDv 是否与使用弥散张量成像（DTI）的白质（WM）束完整性异常有关。我们比较了 20 名目睹过家庭暴力（16 名女性，4 名男性，平均年龄 22.4 ± 2.48 岁）但未遭受身体或性虐待的受试者，以及 27 名未暴露于创伤或轴 I 和 II 障碍的健康对照者（19 名女性，8 名男性，21.9 ± 1.97 岁）。DTI 图像由 3T Siemens Trio 扫描仪采集。使用基于束的空间统计学（TBSS）评估了由年龄、性别、父母教育程度、感知经济充足程度、智商和父母言语攻击暴露程度协变的各向异性分数（FA）的组间差异，该方法将 FA 值投射到对齐不变的纤维束表示上。左侧外侧枕叶下额侧纵束的 FA 值在 WDV 组中显著降低（多重比较校正后 P<0.05）。FA 值与抑郁、焦虑、躯体化、“边缘易激惹”和神经心理学处理速度测量值呈负相关。仅影响径向而非轴向扩散率的测量值表明髓鞘发生了改变。FA 值降低的程度与目睹父母间言语攻击的持续时间以及 7 至 13 岁之间的暴露有关。下额侧纵束连接枕叶和颞叶皮质，是视觉边缘通路的主要成分，该通路支持情绪、学习和记忆功能，这些功能是对视觉特有的。这一发现与这样一种假设一致，即暴露于儿童虐待与传递负面经历到额叶、颞叶或边缘区域的纤维通路改变有关。
