Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.
Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.
Biol Psychiatry. 2017 Oct 1;82(7):511-521. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.01.008. Epub 2017 Jan 17.
Connectivity between the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is compromised in multiple psychiatric disorders, many of which emerge during adolescence. To identify to what extent the deviations in amygdala-vmPFC maturation contribute to the onset of psychiatric disorders, it is essential to characterize amygdala-vmPFC connectivity changes during typical development.
Using an accelerated cohort longitudinal design (1-3 time points, 10-25 years old, n = 246), we characterized developmental changes of the amygdala-vmPFC subregion functional and structural connectivity using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion-weighted imaging.
Functional connectivity between the centromedial amygdala and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), anterior vmPFC, and subgenual cingulate significantly decreased from late childhood to early adulthood in male and female subjects. Age-associated decreases were also observed between the basolateral amygdala and the rACC. Importantly, these findings were replicated in a separate cohort (10-22 years old, n = 327). Similarly, structural connectivity, as measured by quantitative anisotropy, significantly decreased with age in the same regions. Functional connectivity between the centromedial amygdala and the rACC was associated with structural connectivity in these same regions during early adulthood (22-25 years old). Finally, a novel time-varying coefficient analysis showed that increased centromedial amygdala-rACC functional connectivity was associated with greater anxiety and depression symptoms during early adulthood, while increased structural connectivity in centromedial amygdala-anterior vmPFC white matter was associated with greater anxiety/depression during late childhood.
Specific developmental periods of functional and structural connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal systems may contribute to the emergence of anxiety and depressive symptoms and may play a critical role in the emergence of psychiatric disorders in adolescence.
杏仁核与腹内侧前额叶皮质（vmPFC）之间的连通性在多种精神疾病中受到损害，其中许多疾病在青春期出现。为了确定杏仁核-前额叶皮质成熟度的偏差在多大程度上导致了精神疾病的发作，必须描述典型发育过程中杏仁核-前额叶皮质连通性的变化。
使用加速队列纵向设计（1-3 个时间点，10-25 岁，n=246），我们使用静息态功能磁共振成像和弥散加权成像来描述杏仁核-前额叶皮质亚区功能和结构连通性的发育变化。
在男性和女性受试者中，从中后期到早期成年，杏仁核中央区与前扣带皮层（rACC）、前腹内侧前额叶皮质（vmPFC）和扣带回前下区之间的功能连通性显著降低。在基底外侧杏仁核与 rACC 之间也观察到与年龄相关的降低。重要的是，这些发现在另一个队列中得到了复制（10-22 岁，n=327）。同样，以各向异性分数表示的结构连通性在相同区域也随年龄显著降低。在早期成年（22-25 岁），相同区域中，杏仁核中央区与 rACC 的功能连通性与结构连通性相关。最后，一项新的时变系数分析表明，杏仁核中央区-rACC 功能连通性的增加与早期成年时的焦虑和抑郁症状增加有关，而杏仁核中央区-前腹内侧前额叶皮质白质的结构连通性增加与晚期儿童时的焦虑/抑郁症状增加有关。
杏仁核与前额叶系统之间的功能和结构连通性的特定发育时期可能导致焦虑和抑郁症状的出现，并可能在青春期精神疾病的出现中发挥关键作用。
