title: Relationship among interthalamic adhesion size, thalamic anatomy and neuropsychological functions in healthy volunteers.
abstract: The interthalamic adhesion (ITA) is an understudied neuroanatomical structure that forms a bridge of tissue connecting the thalamus of each hemisphere across the midline whose functional significance remains largely unknown. The likelihood of ITA absence has been reported in some studies to be increased in males, but findings have been inconsistent. We used magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the size and absence of the ITA and their relationship to thalamic volume, putative indices of white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) within the anterior thalamic radiation and neuropsychological functions in 233 (129 M/104 F) healthy volunteers (age range 8-68). To ensure high reliability in this study two operators independently rated the absence of the ITA and measured its size for all individuals. The ITA was absent in 4% of all individuals with no sex differences in its absence. Females had greater ITA size compared to males overall with both groups demonstrating nonlinear age-associated changes across the age range examined. ITA size among females correlated significantly with thalamus volume and lower mean diffusivity in the anterior thalamic radiation. Path modeling indicated that ITA size statistically mediated the relationship between age and attention among females. Our findings provide evidence for sex differences in ITA size across the lifespan, which are associated with the surrounding thalamic anatomy and neuropsychological functions.
authors.affiliation: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
authors.forename: Nishad R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Damle
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Applied Sciences, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, USA.
authors.forename: Toshikazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ikuta
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry Research, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.|Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA.|Department of Mathematics, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Majnu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: John
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry Research, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.|Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Bart D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry Research, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.|Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA.|Departments of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine, Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, Hempstead, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: DeRosse
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry Research, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.|Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA.|Departments of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine, Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, Hempstead, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Anil K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Malhotra
authors.affiliation: James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Mental Health Care Center, 130 W Kingsbridge Rd, Bronx, NY, 10468, USA. philip.szeszko@va.gov.|Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. philip.szeszko@va.gov.
authors.forename: Philip R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Szeszko
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013788:Thalamus / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D066127:White Matter; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Diffusion tensor imaging; Interthalamic adhesion; Magnetic resonance imaging; Sex effects; Thalamus