Original articleA magnetic resonance imaging study of cortical thickness in animal phobia
Section snippets
Subjects
Written informed consent was obtained from each subject in accordance with the Institutional Review Board of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Subjects participated as paid volunteers after being recruited through advertisements posted in the community. The study sample comprised 10 subjects with SP and 20 HC subjects, group matched for gender, age, and years of education (see Table 1); all subjects were right-handed (Oldfield 1971). A structured clinical interview (SCID; First et al 1994)
Results
The omnibus test for between-group differences in whole brain cortical thickness yielded significant results (mean cortical thickness ± SD: SP = 2.16 ± .42 mm, HC = 2.11 ± .45 mm; t(1284) = 3.19, p = .001). Likewise analogous omnibus tests of between-group differences in cortical thickness revealed significant findings separately for both the right (SP = 2.17 ± .43 mm, HC = 2.10 ± .45 mm; t(642) = 2.33, p = .02) and left hemispheres (SP = 2.16 ± .42 mm, HC = 2.09 ± .42 mm; t(642) = 3.00, p =
Discussion
In comparison with a group of HC, a cohort of subjects with SP (animal type) were found to exhibit increased cortical thickness across several subterritories of paralimbic cortex as well as sensory cortex. This increase in thickness was found within insular, pregenual anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, and visual cortical regions, which have been implicated in previous functional neuroimaging studies of SP.
The strengths of this study include a well-characterized, diagnostically pure,
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. RO1 MH60219 (SLR), National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. K23 MH64806 (CIW), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (CIW), National Center for Research Resources Grant Nos. RR16594 (BF) and P41RR14075 (BF), and the Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery Institute.
We thank Mary Foley, Jen Holmes, Linda Leahy, and Larry White for technical assistance.
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