Department of Psychiatry, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
BMC Psychiatry. 2014 Feb 15;14:41. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-14-41.
Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested an abnormal neural circuitry of emotion regulation including the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in both adult and adolescent generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients. Aberrant integrity of white matter in this neural circuitry has been verified in adult GAD patients. White matter abnormalities in adolescent GAD patients have not been detected.
Twenty-five adolescents with GAD and 24 healthy controls underwent a diffusion tensor imaging scan. Fractional anisotropy (FA) was compared between groups with a voxel-wise Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) analysis method.
Compared with healthy controls, adolescents with GAD showed significantly reduced FA in bilateral uncinate fasciculus, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and corona radiata.
The findings in the present study suggest a neural basis of emotion dysregulation in adolescent GAD patients.
先前的神经影像学研究表明，成人和青少年广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）患者的情绪调节神经回路（包括杏仁核和前额叶皮层）存在异常。成人 GAD 患者的该神经回路的白质完整性已经得到验证。尚未检测到青少年 GAD 患者的白质异常。
25 名青少年 GAD 患者和 24 名健康对照者接受了弥散张量成像扫描。采用基于体素的空间统计学（TBSS）分析方法比较组间各向异性分数（FA）。
与健康对照组相比，青少年 GAD 患者双侧钩束、下额枕束、下纵束和辐射冠的 FA 值显著降低。
本研究结果提示青少年 GAD 患者存在情绪调节障碍的神经基础。
