Background
Current biological psychiatric models assume that genetic and environmental risk factors
for anxiety and depression act on the same brain structures.
Methods
To test this assumption, we assessed brain anatomy by using optimized voxel-based
morphometry on magnetic resonance images obtained in monozygotic twin pairs who were
discordant for the risk of anxiety and depression (n = 10 pairs) and in monozygotic twin pairs who were concordant for high (n = 7 pairs) or low (n = 15 pairs) risk for anxiety and depression.
Results
We observed volume reductions in the temporal lobe, most notably in the left posterior
hippocampal region in subjects at high risk for anxiety and depression, but exclusively
in the intrapair comparison of discordant monozygotic twins. Because monozygotic twins
are genetically identical, any discordance in their risk for anxiety and depression
and hippocampal volume must arise from differential exposure to environmental influences.
A group comparison between pairs concordant for low or high risk, which is more likely
to reflect differences in genetic vulnerability, did not show reduced temporal-lobe
and posterior hippocampal volumes in the pairs at high risk for anxiety and depression.
Conclusions
This pattern of results suggests that damage to temporal-lobe structures may be specific
to an environmentally driven etiology of anxiety and depression.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 30, 2006
Accepted:
July 22,
2006
Received in revised form:
July 21,
2006
Received:
June 30,
2006
Identification
Copyright
© 2007 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
