Social threat, fronto-cingulate-limbic morphometry, and symptom course in depressed adolescents: a longitudinal investigation.

Background: Psychosocial stressors characterized by social threat, such as interpersonal loss and social rejection, are associated with depression in adolescents. Few studies, however, have examined whether social threat affects fronto-cingulate-limbic systems implicated in adolescent depression.

Methods: We assessed lifetime stressor severity across several domains using the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN) in 57 depressed adolescents (16.15 ± 1.32 years, 34 females), and examined whether the severity of social threat and non-social threat stressors was associated with gray matter volumes (GMVs) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala, hippocampus, and nucleus accumbens (NAcc). We also examined how lifetime social threat severity and GMVs in these regions related to depressive symptoms at baseline and over 9 months.

Results: General stressor severity was related to greater depression severity at baseline and over 9 months. Moreover, greater severity of social threat (but not non-social threat) stressors was associated with smaller bilateral amygdala and NAcc GMVs, and smaller bilateral surface areas of caudal and rostral ACC (all ⩽ 0.048). However, neither social threat nor non-social threat stressor severity was related to hippocampal GMVs (all ⩾ 0.318). All fronto-cingulate-limbic structures that were associated with the severity of social threat were negatively associated with greater depression severity over 9 months (all ⩽ 0.014). Post-hoc analyses suggested that gray matter morphometry of bilateral amygdala, NAcc, and rostral and caudal ACC mediated the association between social threat and depression severity in adolescents over 9 months (all < 0.048).

Conclusions: Social threat specifically affects fronto-cingulate-limbic pathways that contribute to the maintenance of depression in adolescents.