title: Anatomical correlates of quality of life: evidence from voxel-based morphometry.
abstract: Quality of life (QOL) has been defined in many ways, and these definitions usually emphasize happiness and satisfaction with life. Health-related problems are known to cause lower QOL. However, the neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in QOL measured by questionnaire (QOLMQ) in young healthy subjects are unknown. QOL is essential to our well-being, and investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying QOL in uncompromised subjects is obviously of great scientific and social interest. We used voxel-based morphometry to investigate the association between regional gray matter volume (rGMV) and QOLMQ across the brain in healthy young adults (age, 21.4 ± 1.8 years) men (n = 88) and women (n = 68) in humans. We found significant negative relationships between QOLMQ and rGMV in a region in the left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex and regions in the dorsal part of the anterior cingulate gyrus and contingent cingulate regions. These findings show that structural variations in regions associated with processing of negative emotions such as fear and anger as well as those associated with evaluation of internally generated information are associated with QOLMQ. These findings suggest that these processes might be related to QOLMQ in healthy young adults.
authors.affiliation: Smart Ageing International Research Center, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Hikaru
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.forename: Yasuyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Taki
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nouchi
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hashizume
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sassa
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sekiguchi
authors.forename: Yuka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kotozaki
authors.forename: Seishu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakagawa
authors.forename: Tomomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagase
authors.forename: Carlos Makoto
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Miyauchi
authors.forename: Ryuta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kawashima
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007360:Intelligence; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012923:Social Class; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: anterior cingulate gyrus; quality of life (QOL); regional gray matter volume (rGMV); rostrolateral prefrontal cortex; voxel-based morphometry (VBM)