ArticleJournal of affective disorders2016
Relationship of recent stress to amygdala volume in depressed and healthy adults.
Article in Journal of affective disorders, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adversity as the key feature: neuroimaging profiles of subtypes from multiple depression risk factors.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Social stress, cortisol awakening response and sex: association with hippocampus and amygdala volume.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- The Balance in the Head: How Developmental Factors Explain Relationships Between Brain Asymmetries and Mental Diseases.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- The association between recent stressful life events and brain structure: a UK Biobank longitudinal MRI study.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Exploring the association between childhood trauma and limbic system subregion volumes in healthy individuals: a neuroimaging study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Sex differences in the relationship between brain gray matter volume and psychological resilience in late adolescence.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Alterations of amygdala volume and functional connectivity in migraine patients comorbid with and without depression.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
- A Stress Protein-Based Suicide Prediction Score and Relationship to Reported Early-Life Adversity and Recent Life Stress.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Major gender differences in relations between life stressor frequency and gray matter in adolescence and emerging adulthood.Developmental psychology · 2023Article
- Neuroanatomical Correlates of Perceived Stress Controllability in Adolescents and Emerging Adults.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Real-time individual benefit from social interactions before and during the lockdown: the crucial role of personality, neurobiology and genes.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Mini-review: Elucidating the psychological, physical, and sex-based interactions between HIV infection and stress.Neuroscience letters · 2021Review
- Smaller left hippocampal subfield CA1 volume is associated with reported childhood physical and/or sexual abuse in major depression: A pilot study.Journal of affective disorders · 2020Article
- Sex Differences in Trauma-Related Psychopathology: a Critical Review of Neuroimaging Literature (2014-2017).Current psychiatry reports · 2017Review
- Hippocampal and Amygdalar Volume Changes in Major Depressive Disorder: A Targeted Review and Focus on Stress.Chronic stress (Thousand Oaks, Calif.)Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe amygdala is an integral part of the extrahypothalamic stress-response system, and its volume related to childhood trauma has been studied, but less is known of associations with recent stressful life events. Amygdala volume differences also have been studied in depression, with conflicting results. We hypothesized that effects of stress may be a confound for amygdala volumetric differences in the context of depression.
methodsRight-handed participants (n=61) experiencing a major depressive episode during major depressive disorder (n=40) or bipolar depression (n=21) and healthy volunteers (n=60) underwent 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The amygdala perimeter was manually traced with an electronic mouse, based on anatomical landmarks on consecutive coronal slices, by raters blind to diagnosis. The effects of stress on amygdala volume were examined in linear regression models with self-reported physical/sexual abuse or highest category score on the St. Paul-Ramsey scale of stressful life events within the past 6 months as predictors, testing separately for age, sex, race, and depression status as covariates.
resultsDiagnostic groups did not differ significantly with respect to mean age (depressed, 37.8±11.8yrs; healthy, 34.9±13.8yrs) or proportion of males (depressed, 39%, healthy, 50%). We found no association between physical and/or sexual abuse history and amygdala volume. Life stress within the last six months, however, was associated with smaller left amygdala volume. The association between stress and amygdala volume did not differ by diagnostic group. LIMITATIONS: Most depressed patients were off medications for at least 2 weeks; however, this may not have been long enough to reverse effects of medications on amygdala structure.
conclusionsThat life stress of relatively short duration was associated with amygdala size in the entire sample, while temporally distant life stress was not, suggests that amygdala volume changes may occur rapidly and reversibly, and independent of depression status.
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Registered trials
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