title: Hippocampus and amygdala volumes in patients with vaginismus.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare hippocampus and amygdala volumes of patients with vaginismus with those of healthy control subjects.
  
  
  METHODS
  Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on ten patients with vaginismus and ten control subjects matched for age and gender. Volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala were blindly measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that the mean right amygdala volume of patients with vaginismus were smaller than that of the healthy controls. With regard to hippocampus volumes, the mean left and right hippocampus volumes were smaller than those of the healthy controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our present findings suggest that there have been hippocampus and amygdala structural abnormalities in patients with vaginismus. These changes provide the notion that vaginismus may be a fear-related condition.
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Murad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Atmaca
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Sema
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baykara
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Omer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ozer
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Sevda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Korkmaz
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Unsal
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Akaslan
authors.affiliation: Murad Atmaca, Omer Ozer, Sevda Korkmaz, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Firat University, 23119 Elazig, Turkey.
authors.forename: Hanefi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yildirim
keywords: Amygdala; Hippocampus; Patients; Vaginismus; Volumes