Morphological Biomarkers in the Amygdala and Hippocampus of Children and Adults at High Familial Risk for Depression.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is highly familial, and the hippocampus and amygdala are important in the pathophysiology of MDD. Whether morphological markers of risk for familial depression are present in the hippocampus or amygdala is unknown. We imaged the brains of 148 individuals, aged 6 to 54 years, who were members of a three-generation family cohort study and who were at either high or low familial risk for MDD.

State and Trait Rumination Effects on Overt Attention to Reminders of Errors in a Challenging General Knowledge Retrieval Task.

Rumination is a recurrent and repetitive manner of thinking that can be triggered by blockage of personally relevant goals, creating a temporary state of abstract and evaluative self-focus. Particularly when focused on passive "brooding" over one's problems and feelings, however, rumination can increase negative affect, interfere with problem-solving, and, through a negative feedback cycle, become a chronic trait-like style of responding to personal challenges, particularly in women. Given the pervasiveness of rumination and its potential impact on cognitive processes and emotional states, the present study asks how it impacts attention to feedback that either reminds individuals of goal-state discrepancies (reminders of errors) or could help to remediate them (corrective information).

Rumination and Rebound from Failure as a Function of Gender and Time on Task.

Rumination is a trait response to blocked goals that can have positive or negative outcomes for goal resolution depending on where attention is focused. Whereas "moody brooding" on affective states may be maladaptive, especially for females, "reflective pondering" on concrete strategies for problem solving may be more adaptive. In the context of a challenging general knowledge test, we examined how Brooding and Reflection rumination styles predicted students' subjective and event-related responses (ERPs) to negative feedback, as well as use of this feedback to rebound from failure on a later surprise retest.

Emotion blocks the path to learning under stereotype threat.

Gender-based stereotypes undermine females' performance on challenging math tests, but how do they influence their ability to learn from the errors they make? Females under stereotype threat or non-threat were presented with accuracy feedback after each problem on a GRE-like math test, followed by an optional interactive tutorial that provided step-wise problem-solving instruction. Event-related potentials tracked the initial detection of the negative feedback following errors [feedback related negativity (FRN), P3a], as well as any subsequent sustained attention/arousal to that information [late positive potential (LPP)]. Learning was defined as success in applying tutorial information to correction of initial test errors on a surprise retest 24-h later.

Morphologic features of the amygdala and hippocampus in children and adults with Tourette syndrome.

Context: Limbic portions of cortical-subcortical circuits are likely involved in the pathogenesis of Tourette syndrome (TS). They are anatomically, developmentally, neurochemically, and functionally related to the basal ganglia, and the basal ganglia are thought to produce the symptoms of tics, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder that commonly affect persons with TS.

Objective: To study the morphologic features of the hippocampus and amygdala in children and adults with TS.

Correlates of intellectual ability with morphology of the hippocampus and amygdala in healthy adults.

Several prior imaging studies of healthy adults have correlated volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala with measures of general intelligence (IQ), with variable results. In this study, we assessed correlations between volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala and full-scale IQ scores (FSIQ) using a method of image analysis that permits detailed regional mapping of this correlation throughout the surface contour of these brain structures. We delineated the hippocampus and amygdala in high-resolution magnetic resonance images of the brain from 34 healthy individuals.

Hippocampus and amygdala morphology in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Context: Limbic structures are implicated in the genesis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by the presence of mood and cognitive disturbances in affected individuals and by elevated rates of mood disorders in family members of probands with ADHD.

Objective: To study the morphology of the hippocampus and amygdala in children with ADHD.

Design: A cross-sectional case-control study of the hippocampus and amygdala using anatomical magnetic resonance imaging.

Cortisol levels and hippocampus volumes in healthy preadolescent children.

Background: Research in animal models has demonstrated that elevated levels of glucocorticoids can inflict damage within the hippocampus. In adult humans, elevated cortisol levels have been associated with reduced hippocampal volumes; however, normative data in children are not available. The objective of this study was to examine possible associations of serum cortisol levels with hippocampal volumes and morphology in healthy children.

ROC-based assessments of 3D cortical surface-matching algorithms.

Algorithms for the semi-automated analysis of brain surfaces have recently received considerable attention, and yet, they rarely receive a rigorous assessment of their performance. We present a method for the quantitative assessment of performance across differing surface analysis algorithms and across various modifications of a single algorithm. The sensitivity and specificity of an algorithm for detecting known deformations added synthetically to the brains being studied are assessed using curves for Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC).

Amygdala and hippocampal volumes in adolescents and adults with bipolar disorder.

Background: The purported functions of medial temporal lobe structures suggest their involvement in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD). Previous reports of abnormalities in the volume of the amygdala and hippocampus in patients with BD have been inconsistent in their findings and limited to adult samples. Appreciation of whether volumetric abnormalities are early features of BD or whether the abnormalities represent neurodegenerative changes associated with illness duration is limited by the paucity of data in juvenile samples.