Mikolas Pavol, Habig Nico, Tozzi Leonardo, Bauer Michael
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Neurosci Appl. 2023 Nov 8;3:103921. doi: 10.1016/j.nsa.2023.103921. eCollection 2024.
Exposure to stress, particularly during childhood, has been linked to chronic medical conditions, including mental disorders. In recent years, advancements in modern segmentation techniques for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have allowed for more detailed study of brain regions in vivo. While automated segmentation of the hippocampus has been a well-established method, the segmentation of the amygdala has been implemented relatively recently. Despite the importance of the amygdala in stress processing, to our knowledge, no literature review has been conducted on the volumes of amygdala subregions in relation to stressful events in human subjects in vivo. In this review article, we provide a systematic review of the studies of amygdala subregions volumes in the presence of exposure to stressful life events. Our findings show that studies of amygdala subregions in human subjects in vivo predominantly reported an inverse association of their volumes with exposure to stressful events. Specifically, the nuclei within the basolateral complex were most frequently reported, followed by the superficial structures. Positive associations were less frequently reported. Overall, this review provides valuable insights into the relationship between amygdala subregion volumes and exposure to stressful events in human subjects in vivo. The currently available evidence provides no strong support, that some amygdala subregions are more likely to be stress sensitive than others. The findings could help designing future studies on associations of exposure to stressful events and brain structure.
暴露于压力之下，尤其是在童年时期，已被证明与包括精神障碍在内的慢性疾病有关。近年来，磁共振成像（MRI）现代分割技术的进步使得在体对脑区进行更详细的研究成为可能。虽然海马体的自动分割已是一种成熟的方法，但杏仁核的分割相对较新才得以实现。尽管杏仁核在压力处理中具有重要作用，但据我们所知，尚未有关于人类受试者在体杏仁核亚区体积与应激事件关系的文献综述。在这篇综述文章中，我们对暴露于应激性生活事件时杏仁核亚区体积的研究进行了系统综述。我们的研究结果表明，对人类受试者在体杏仁核亚区的研究主要报告其体积与暴露于应激事件呈负相关。具体而言，基底外侧复合体中的核团报告最为频繁，其次是表层结构。正相关的报告较少。总体而言，本综述为人类受试者在体杏仁核亚区体积与暴露于应激事件之间的关系提供了有价值的见解。目前可得的证据并不有力支持某些杏仁核亚区比其他亚区更容易对压力敏感这一观点。这些发现有助于设计未来关于暴露于应激事件与脑结构关联的研究。
