The relation between tendency for psychopathology and reduced frontal brain volume in healthy people.
OBJECTIVE
We hypothesized that tendency toward psychopathology is associated with lower frontotemporal volumes.


BACKGROUND
Although there is considerable evidence for structural abnormalities in patients with major psychiatric disorders and increased recognition that neural substrates may underlie individual differences in personality, there have been no studies in healthy people attempting to relate personality to volumetric measures of brain structure.


METHODS
We used magnetic resonance imaging with an advanced method for automated segmentation of cranial compartments to gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid. We examined the relation between frontal and temporal lobe volumes and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory measures of tendency toward psychopathology in 59 healthy individuals.


RESULTS
As hypothesized, higher scores on the clinical scales were associated with lower average frontal lobe volume. When the sample was divided according to sex, however, these correlations were significant in men (n = 29) but not in women (n = 30). The highest correlation was observed between lower frontal white matter volume in men and high schizophrenia scale score (r[27] = -0.59, p <0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that personality dimensions in healthy people can be linked to neural substrates, which can potentially serve as endophenotypic markers of disposition to psychopathology. The sexually dimorphic effects are consistent with gender-related differences in the clinical manifestations of psychiatric disorders and may suggest sex hormone modulation of the psychopathologic processes.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, USA.
M
M
Matsui
R C
RC
Gur
B I
BI
Turetsky
M X
MX
Yan
R E
RE
Gur
D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000473:pathology; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D011599:Psychopathology; D012016:Reference Values; D017678:Sex Distribution
D015415:Biomarkers