Open AccessChildhood trauma moderates morphometric associations between orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala: implications for pathological personality traits
Author(s) -
Nadia Bounoua,
Rickie Miglin,
Jeffrey M. Spielberg,
Curtis L. Johnson,
Naomi Sadeh
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
psychological medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.857
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1469-8978
pISSN - 0033-2917
DOI - 10.1017/s0033291720004468
Subject(s) - amygdala , orbitofrontal cortex , psychology , pathological , personality pathology , neuroimaging , clinical psychology , emotional dysregulation , personality , functional neuroimaging , neuroscience , medicine , personality disorders , prefrontal cortex , pathology , social psychology , cognition
Research has demonstrated that chronic stress exposure early in development can lead to detrimental alterations in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)-amygdala circuit. However, the majority of this research uses functional neuroimaging methods, and thus the extent to which childhood trauma corresponds to morphometric alterations in this limbic-cortical network has not yet been investigated. This study had two primary objectives: (i) to test whether anatomical associations between OFC-amygdala differed between adults as a function of exposure to chronic childhood assaultive trauma and (ii) to test how these environment-by-neurobiological effects relate to pathological personality traits.