title: Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems have substantially less brain gray matter volume.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Structural neuroimaging studies have demonstrated lower regional gray matter volume in adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems. These research studies, including ours, have generally focused on male-only or mixed-sex samples of adolescents with conduct and/or substance problems. Here we compare gray matter volume between female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems and female healthy controls of similar ages.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems will show significantly less gray matter volume in frontal regions critical to inhibition (i.e. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), conflict processing (i.e., anterior cingulate), valuation of expected outcomes (i.e., medial orbitofrontal cortex) and the dopamine reward system (i.e. striatum).
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted whole-brain voxel-based morphometric comparison of structural MR images of 22 patients (14-18 years) with severe substance and conduct problems and 21 controls of similar age using statistical parametric mapping (SPM) and voxel-based morphometric (VBM8) toolbox. We tested group differences in regional gray matter volume with analyses of covariance, adjusting for age and IQ at p<0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons at whole-brain cluster-level threshold.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems compared to controls showed significantly less gray matter volume in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, medial orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, bilateral somatosensory cortex, left supramarginal gyrus, and bilateral angular gyrus. Considering the entire brain, patients had 9.5% less overall gray matter volume compared to controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems in comparison to similarly aged female healthy controls showed substantially lower gray matter volume in brain regions involved in inhibition, conflict processing, valuation of outcomes, decision-making, reward, risk-taking, and rule-breaking antisocial behavior.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Manish S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Dalwani
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mary Agnes
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Susan K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Mikulich-Gilbertson
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Susan E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Young
authors.affiliation: Departments of Radiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Regner
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kristen M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Raymond
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Shannon K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: McWilliams
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America; Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Marie T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Banich
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America; Departments of Radiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jody L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Tanabe
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Crowley
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Joseph T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Sakai
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000473:pathology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D059906:Neuroimaging; D009929:Organ Size / Q000502:physiology; D000066553:Problem Behavior; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000473:pathology*