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. 2016 Mar;22(3):194-9.
doi: 10.1111/cns.12482. Epub 2016 Jan 18.

Morphological Changes of Amygdala in Turner Syndrome Patients

Shu-Yu Li  1 , Yong-Qi Xie  1 , Han Li  1 , Xin-Wei Li  1 , Zhi-Xin Zhang  2 , Qiu-Ling Zhao  2 , Sheng Xie  3 , Gao-Lang Gong  4
Affiliations

Morphological Changes of Amygdala in Turner Syndrome Patients

Shu-Yu Li et al. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Aims: Turner's syndrome (TS) losts one of the X chromosomes and exhibits social cognition deficits. Previous studies have reported that women with TS demonstrated structural and functional abnormalities in brain, including increased volume in amygdala. However, most studies regarded the amygdala as a whole, and the abnormalities in the specific subregions of amygdala in TS have not been studied. Here, we aimed to investigate the local morphological changes of amygdala in TS using the surface morphology analysis method.

Methods: A total of 19 adolescents with 45XO TS and 20 matched adolescents with typical development were evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging. The amygdalae of all participants were manually delineated. 3D surface remodeling and parameterization were performed based on the outlined boundaries of amygdalae. We extracted two surface metrics, namely direct Euclidean displacement and normal projection that were used to represent the morphology of amygdala.

Results: Statistical analysis showed significant outward deformation in the laterobasal subregion of left amygdala in patients with TS, compared with the controls using either direct Euclidean displacement or normal displacement.

Conclusions: Our findings provide novel insight into the pathological changes in the amygdala of patients with TS.

Keywords: Amygdala; MRI; Shape analysis; Turner syndrome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Manual delineation of the amygdala. (A) The left amygdala section in the coronal plane. The red line indicates the border of amygdala and white arrow marks its inferior boundary on coronal plane. In the bottom left corner of the figure is the thumbnail on coronal plane. L and R indicate the left and right side, respectively. (B) The left amygdala section in the coronal plane. The red line indicates the border of amygdala and white arrow marks its superior boundary on coronal plane. (C) The left amygdala and hippocampus section in the coronal plane. The red line indicates the border of amygdala and green line represents outline of hippocampus, the white arrow marks the temporal horn which starts to enlarge distinctly along the lateral side of the two structures. (D) The left amygdala and hippocampus sections in the sagittal plane. The red line indicates the border of amygdala and green line represents the outline of hippocampus. In the bottom left corner of the figure is the thumbnail on sagittal plane. A and P indicate the anterior and posterior side, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The box plot of bilateral amygdala volumes in normal control (NC) and Turner's syndrome (TS) groups.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The results of surface morphology analysis using direct displacement as the surface metric. (A) The scenograph of left amygdala on the coronal plane. The figure is shown from direction of anterior to posterior. Ventral view of t‐test scores between Turner's syndrome (TS) group and controls. (B) The scenograph of left amygdala on the coronal plane. The figure is shown from direction of anterior to posterior. Ventral view of P value between TS group and controls. Only significant surface clusters (P < 0.01, cluster level, corrected) are colored. (C) Dorsal view of t‐test scores between TS group and controls. (D) Dorsal view of P value between TS group and controls. Notably, right amygdala was not shown as no significant result was found.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The results of surface morphology analysis using normal displacement as the surface metric. (A) The scenograph of left amygdala on the coronal plane. The figure is shown from direction of anterior to posterior. Ventral view of t‐test scores between Turner's syndrome (TS) group and controls. (B) The scenograph of left amygdala on the coronal plane. The figure is shown from direction of anterior to posterior. Ventral view of P value between TS group and controls. Only significant surface clusters (P < 0.01, cluster level, corrected) are colored. (C) Dorsal view of t‐test scores between TS group and controls. (D) Dorsal view of P value between TS group and controls. Notably, right amygdala was not shown as no significant result was found.
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