Koç Mustafa, Mermi Osman, Aslan Sabriye, Atmaca Murad
Department of Radiology, Fırat University School of Medicine, Elazığ, Turkey.
Department of Psychiatry, Fırat University School of Medicine, Elazığ, Turkey.
Psychiatry Clin Psychopharmacol. 2022 Mar 1;32(1):28-32. doi: 10.5152/pcp.2022.21239. eCollection 2022 Mar.
There are no volumetric magnetic resonance imaging studies on the pituitary gland in individuals with social anxiety disorder. The present study aimed to investigate pituitary volume in individuals with social anxiety disorder compared to healthy controls due to the correlation between pituitary gland volume and stress response and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and hypothesized that pituitary gland volume would be different in these individuals.
In this study, 21 individuals with social anxiety disorder based on fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and 20 healthy controls were included. Both patient and control groups were scanned with a 1.5-Tesla General Electric (GE) Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner. Pituitary volume was measured with the manual tracing method.
The statistical analysis revealed that the mean pituitary gland volume of the individuals with social anxiety disorder was significantly smaller when compared to that of healthy controls, statistically, as presented inTable 1 [594.10±104.56 mm for individuals with social anxiety disorder and 818.01±215.25 mm for healthy controls] when it was done by using the analysis of covariance controlled for age (12.979, = 1, < .001), sex (11.448, = 1, < .001), and total brain volume (10.772, = 1, < .001), demonstrating that smaller pituitary volume in social anxiety disorder, when compared to healthy subjects, was an important finding independent of age, sex, or total brain volume.
We suggest that social anxiety disorder may be associated with smaller pituitary volume, supporting the notion that anxiety itself could reduce the pituitary volume.
目前尚无针对社交焦虑障碍患者垂体的容积磁共振成像研究。由于垂体容积与应激反应及下丘脑 - 垂体 - 肾上腺轴之间存在关联，本研究旨在调查社交焦虑障碍患者与健康对照者的垂体容积，并假设这些个体的垂体容积会有所不同。
本研究纳入了21名符合《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》第四版（DSM - IV）标准的社交焦虑障碍患者和20名健康对照者。患者组和对照组均使用1.5特斯拉通用电气（GE）磁共振成像扫描仪进行扫描。采用手动追踪法测量垂体容积。
统计分析显示，在对年龄（F = 12.979，df = 1，P <.001）、性别（F = 11.448，df = 1，P <.001）和全脑容积（F = 10.772，df = 1，P <.001）进行协方差分析后，社交焦虑障碍患者的平均垂体容积显著小于健康对照者，如表1所示[社交焦虑障碍患者为594.10±104.56立方毫米，健康对照者为818.01±215.25立方毫米]，这表明与健康受试者相比，社交焦虑障碍患者垂体容积较小是一个独立于年龄、性别或全脑容积的重要发现。
我们认为社交焦虑障碍可能与较小的垂体容积有关，这支持了焦虑本身可能会减小垂体容积的观点。
