Gray matter structures associated with neuroticism: A meta‐analysis of whole‐brain voxel‐based morphometry studies

Abstract

Neuroticism is major higher‐order personality trait and has been robustly associated with mental and physical health outcomes. Although a growing body of studies have identified neurostructural markers of neuroticism, the results remained highly inconsistent. To characterize robust associations between neuroticism and variations in gray matter (GM) structures, the present meta‐analysis investigated the concurrence across voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) studies using the anisotropic effect size signed differential mapping (AES‐SDM). A total of 13 studies comprising 2,278 healthy subjects (1,275 females, 29.20 ± 14.17 years old) were included. Our analysis revealed that neuroticism was consistently associated with the GM structure of a cluster spanning the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and extending to the adjacent medial prefrontal cortex (dACC/mPFC). Meta‐regression analyses indicated that the neuroticism‐GM associations were not confounded by age and gender. Overall, our study is the first whole‐brain meta‐analysis exploring the brain structural correlates of neuroticism, and the findings may have implications for the intervention of high‐neuroticism individuals, who are at risk of mental disorders, by targeting the dACC/mPFC.

Common and specific patterns of functional and structural brain alterations in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a multimodal voxel-based meta-analysis

“…Finally, we generated the mean map by voxelwise calculation of the random-effects mean of the data set maps, weighted by sample size, intra-data-set variability and between-data-set heterogeneity. We used the default SDM kernel size and thresholds (full width at half maximum [FWHM] = 20 mm; p = 0.005, uncorrected for false discovery rate; peak height Z = 1; cluster extent = 10 voxels) [35][36][37][38][39][40] as used in many previous studies because they have been validated to optimize sensitivity and specificity and to produce a desirable balance between type I and II error rates. 41 This FWHM kernel is intended to assign indicators of proximity to reported coordinates but not to smooth any image that is different in nature.…”

“…We obtained heterogeneous brain regions using the default SDM kernel size and thresholds described above. [35][36][37][38][39][40] We also performed Egger tests using Stata/SE 12.0 for Windows (Stata Corp. LP) to assess possible publication bias by extracting values from significant relevant peaks between patients and healthy controls. 35 A p value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.…”

Distinct neurostructural signatures of anxiety-, fear-related and depressive disorders: a comparative voxel-based meta-analysis

“…fMRI studies have shown common neurofunctional alterations in the mPFC and ACC in cognitive or emotional processing in both GAD and MDD (17)(18)(19). Previous metaanalyses have identified altered volume in mPFC in GAD (22), MDD (26), and individuals with high neuroticism (48), a pathological meta-factor associated with GAD and MDD which share symptomatic (e.g., negative affect, worry) (4) and genetic etiologies (5). The mPFC is a key node in the default mode network (DMN), which is engaged in self-referential processing and emotion regulation including distress tolerance (49,50).…”

Is neuroticism really bad for you? Dynamics in personality and limbic reactivity prior to, during and following real-life combat stress

“…3A ). Within the ACC, analysis was focused on its dorsal section (dACC) following meta-analyses of structural and functional neuroimaging studies that pointed towards the dACC as the most relevant ACC section in the context of emotional processing and neuroticism ( Liu et al, 2021 ; Servaas et al, 2013 ). The dACC mask was defined using the Destrieux Atlas (2009) as implemented in neurovault ( https://identifiers.org/neurovault.image:23264 ) ( Fig.…”

“…Studies assessing the association between neuroticism scores and functional connectivity patterns also yielded mixed findings, including increased ( Cremers et al, 2010 ) and decreased ( Yang et al, 2020 ) connectivity of the amygdala with the dorsomedial prefrontal (dmPFC), as well as increased amygdala connectivity with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) ( Silverman et al, 2019 ) and decreased connectivity with the ACC ( Cremers et al, 2010 ; Deng et al, 2019 ). Additional support for the putative role of the in neuroticism, particularly its dorsal part (dACC), stems from a recent meta-analysis demonstrating a positive relationship between dACC gray matter volume and neuroticism scores among healthy adults ( Liu et al, 2021 ). Taken together, neuroimaging literature highlighted the amygdala, hippocampus, and ACC as neural structures that may relate to neuroticism scores, though multiple inconsistences emerged, potentially implying that the association between neuroticism and limbic reactivity is dynamic and context dependent ( Servaas et al, 2013 ).…”