Right, Justin. I am thinking about difficulty with differentiation of time and of place. I am wondering more about the neurobiological underpinnings of related phenomena like dissociation indeed.
Thank you Justin! Very astute comments. I totally agree with you that we have to be extremely careful both about the phenomenology and its description, but also precise about the neural functions that might subserve these phenomena. I wonder about the hippocampus' multiple functions and how other structures in the cortico-limbic circuit might contribute exactly as you describe to the confusion about the bags on the side of the road, confused with bombs.
Thanks. I know Mark Barad and the other references that you suggest are good ideas.
Here's the kind of reference that I was hoping for to help respond to my question! It just came out:
Front Behav Neurosci. 2014 Oct 6;8:342. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00342. eCollection 2014.
Early life stress and macaque amygdala hypertrophy: preliminary evidence for a role for the serotonin transporter gene.
Coplan JD1, Fathy HM1, Jackowski AP2, Tang CY3, Perera TD4, Mathew SJ5, Martinez J6, Abdallah CG7, Dwork AJ8, Pantol G3, Carpenter D3, Gorman JM9, Nemeroff CB10, Owens MJ11, Kaffman A12, Kaufman J13.
Author information
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center Brooklyn, NY, USA.
2Departamento de Psiquiatria, Neuroradiology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo São Paolo, Brazil.
3Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Radiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York, NY, USA.
4Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute New York, NY, USA.
5Mental Health Care Line, Michael E. Debakey VA Medical Center Houston, TX, USA ; Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX, USA.
6Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York, NY, USA.
7Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA ; Clinical Neuroscience Division, National Center for PTSD West Haven, CT, USA.
8Department of Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology, New York State Psychiatric Institute New York, NY, USA ; Departmets of Psychiatry and Pathology and Cell Biology, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University New York, NY, USA.
9Comprehensive NeuroScience Corporation Westchester, NY, USA.
10Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Health Sytems Miami, FL, USA.
11Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine Emory, GA, USA.
12Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA.
13Clinical Neuroscience Division, National Center for PTSD West Haven, CT, USA ; Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Children exposed to early life stress (ELS) exhibit enlarged amygdala volume in comparison to controls. The primary goal of this study was to examine amygdala volumes in bonnet macaques subjected to maternal variable foraging demand (VFD) rearing, a well-established model of ELS. Preliminary analyses examined the interaction of ELS and the serotonin transporter gene on amygdala volume. Secondary analyses were conducted to examine the association between amygdala volume and other stress-related variables previously found to distinguish VFD and non-VFD reared animals.
METHODS:
Twelve VFD-reared and nine normally reared monkeys completed MRI scans on a 3T system (mean age = 5.2 years).
RESULTS:
Left amygdala volume was larger in VFD vs. control macaques. Larger amygdala volume was associated with: "high" cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of corticotropin releasing-factor (CRF) determined when the animals were in adolescence (mean age = 2.7 years); reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) of the anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC) during young adulthood (mean age = 5.2 years) and timid anxiety-like responses to an intruder during full adulthood (mean age = 8.4 years). Right amygdala volume varied inversely with left hippocampal neurogenesis assessed in late adulthood (mean age = 8.7 years). Exploratory analyses also showed a gene-by-environment effect, with VFD-reared macaques with a single short allele of the serotonin transporter gene exhibiting larger amygdala volume compared to VFD-reared subjects with only the long allele and normally reared controls.
CONCLUSION:
These data suggest that the left amygdala exhibits hypertrophy after ELS, particularly in association with the serotonin transporter gene, and that amygdala volume variation occurs in concert with other key stress-related behavioral and neurobiological parameters observed across the lifecycle. Future research is required to understand the mechanisms underlying these diverse and persistent changes associated with ELS and amygdala volume.
KEYWORDS:
MRI; amygdala; early life stress; non-human primates; serotonin transporter gene; stress
PMID:
25339875
[PubMed]
PMCID:
PMC4186477
Free PMC Article
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