TY  - JOUR
A1  - Holz, Nathalie E.
A1  - Boecker-Schlier, Regina
A1  - Buchmann, Arlette F.
A1  - Blomeyer, Dorothea
A1  - Jennen-Steinmetz, Christine
A1  - Baumeister, Sarah
A1  - Plichta, Michael M.
A1  - Cattrell, Anna
A1  - Schumann, Gunter
A1  - Esser, Günter
A1  - Schmidt, Martin
A1  - Buitelaar, Jan
A1  - Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas
A1  - Banaschewski, Tobias
A1  - Brandeis, Daniel
A1  - Laucht, Manfred
T1  - Ventral striatum and amygdala activity as convergence sites for early adversity and conduct disorder
JF  - Frontiers in human neuroscience
N2  - Childhood family adversity (CFA) increases the risk for conduct disorder (CD) and has been associated with alterations in regions of affective processing like ventral striatum (VS) and amygdala. However, no study so far has demonstrated neural converging effects of CFA and CD in the same sample. At age 25 years, functional MRI data during two affective tasks, i.e. a reward (N = 171) and a face-matching paradigm (N = 181) and anatomical scans (N = 181) were acquired in right-handed currently healthy participants of an epidemiological study followed since birth. CFA during childhood was determined using a standardized parent interview. Disruptive behaviors and CD diagnoses during childhood and adolescence were obtained by diagnostic interview (2–19 years), temperamental reward dependence was assessed by questionnaire (15 and 19 years).

CFA predicted increased CD and amygdala volume. Both exposure to CFA and CD were associated with a decreased VS response during reward anticipation and blunted amygdala activity during face-matching. CD mediated the effect of CFA on brain activity. Temperamental reward dependence was negatively correlated with CFA and CD and positively with VS activity. These findings underline the detrimental effects of CFA on the offspring's affective processing and support the importance of early postnatal intervention programs aiming to reduce childhood adversity factors.
KW  - childhood adversity
KW  - conduct disorder
KW  - amygdala
KW  - ventral striatum
KW  - fMRI
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw120
SN  - 1749-5016
SN  - 1749-5024
VL  - 12
IS  - 2
SP  - 261
EP  - 272
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Holz, Nathalie
A1  - Boecker-Schlier, Regina
A1  - Buchmann, Arlette F.
A1  - Blomeyer, Dorothea
A1  - Baumeister, Sarah
A1  - Hohmann, Sarah
A1  - Jennen-Steinmetz, Christine
A1  - Wolf, Isabella
A1  - Rietschel, Marcella
A1  - Witt, Stephanie H.
A1  - Plichta, Michael M.
A1  - Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas
A1  - Schmidt, Martin H.
A1  - Esser, Günter
A1  - Banaschewski, Tobias
A1  - Brandeis, Daniel
A1  - Laucht, Manfred
T1  - Evidence for a Sex-Dependent MAOAx Childhood Stress Interaction in the Neural Circuitry of Aggression
JF  - Cerebral cortex
N2  - Converging evidence emphasizes the role of an interaction between monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) genotype, environmental adversity, and sex in the pathophysiology of aggression. The present study aimed to clarify the impact of this interaction on neural activity in aggression-related brain systems. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 125 healthy adults from a high-risk community sample followed since birth. DNA was genotyped for the MAOA-VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats). Exposure to childhood life stress (CLS) between the ages of 4 and 11 years was assessed using a standardized parent interview, aggression by the Youth/Young Adult Self-Report between the ages of 15 and 25 years, and the VIRA-R (Vragenlijst Instrumentele En Reactieve Agressie) at the age of 15 years. Significant interactions were obtained between MAOA genotype, CLS, and sex relating to amygdala, hippocampus, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) response, respectively. Activity in the amygdala and hippocampus during emotional face-matching increased with the level of CLS in male MAOA-L, while decreasing in male MAOA-H, with the reverse pattern present in females. Findings in the opposite direction in the ACC during a flanker NoGo task suggested that increased emotional activity coincided with decreased inhibitory control. Moreover, increasing amygdala activity was associated with higher Y(A)SR aggression in male MAOA-L and female MAOA-H carriers. Likewise, a significant association between amygdala activity and reactive aggression was detected in female MAOA-H carriers. The results point to a moderating role of sex in the MAOAx CLS interaction for intermediate phenotypes of emotional and inhibitory processing, suggesting a possible mechanism in conferring susceptibility to violence-related disorders.
KW  - aggression
KW  - amygdala
KW  - fMRI
KW  - life stress
KW  - MAOA
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhu249
SN  - 1047-3211
SN  - 1460-2199
VL  - 26
SP  - 904
EP  - 914
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Cary
ER  -