title: Associations between Family Adversity and Brain Volume in Adolescence: Manual vs. Automated Brain Segmentation Yields Different Results.
abstract: Associations between brain structure and early adversity have been inconsistent in the literature. These inconsistencies may be partially due to methodological differences. Different methods of brain segmentation may produce different results, obscuring the relationship between early adversity and brain volume. Moreover, adolescence is a time of significant brain growth and certain brain areas have distinct rates of development, which may compromise the accuracy of automated segmentation approaches. In the current study, 23 adolescents participated in two waves of a longitudinal study. Family aggression was measured when the youths were 12 years old, and structural scans were acquired an average of 4 years later. Bilateral amygdalae and hippocampi were segmented using three different methods (manual tracing, FSL, and NeuroQuant). The segmentation estimates were compared, and linear regressions were run to assess the relationship between early family aggression exposure and all three volume segmentation estimates. Manual tracing results showed a positive relationship between family aggression and right amygdala volume, whereas FSL segmentation showed negative relationships between family aggression and both the left and right hippocampi. However, results indicate poor overlap between methods, and different associations were found between early family aggression exposure and brain volume depending on the segmentation method used.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lyden
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah I
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Gimbel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Larissa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Del Piero
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: A Bryna
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Sachs
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA, USA; Department of Psychology, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Jonas T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Gayla
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Margolin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Darby
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Saxbe
keywords: adolescence; amygdala; early life stress; family aggression; hippocampus; methodology