Microstructural integrity of white matter moderates an association between childhood adversity and adult trait anger

Abstract

Amongst a number of negative life sequelae associated with childhood adversity is the later expression of a higher dispositional tendency to experience anger and frustration to a wide range of situations (i.e., trait anger). We recently reported that an association between childhood adversity and trait anger is moderated by individual differences in both threat-related amygdala activity and executive control-related dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity, wherein individuals with relatively low amygdala and high dlPFC activity do not express higher trait anger even when having experienced childhood adversity. Here, we examine possible structural correlates of this functional dynamic using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data from 647 young adult men and women volunteers. Specifically, we tested whether the degree of white matter microstructural integrity as indexed by fractional anisotropy modulated the association between childhood adversity and trait anger.Our analyses revealed that higher microstructural integrity of multiple pathways was associated with an attenuated link between childhood adversity and adult trait anger.

Alcohol, Aggression, and Violence: From Public Health to Neuroscience

“…Individuals with the low amygdala and high dorsolateral PFC activity do not express high trait anger, despite having experienced stress in early life (Kim et al, 2018 ). Suppression of adult trait anger was owing to the higher microstructural integrity of white matter pathways, including the uncinate fasciculus, which anatomically links the PFC and amygdala in the regulation of negative emotion (Kim et al, 2019 ). However, the findings by Kim et al ( 2019 ) were based on subjects free of borderline and personality disorders, which are the most commonly associated psychiatric comorbidities with intoxicated aggression and also known to have reduced white matter integrity in regions associated with risky behavior and impulsivity (Jiang et al, 2017 ; Ninomiya et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Suppression of adult trait anger was owing to the higher microstructural integrity of white matter pathways, including the uncinate fasciculus, which anatomically links the PFC and amygdala in the regulation of negative emotion (Kim et al, 2019 ). However, the findings by Kim et al ( 2019 ) were based on subjects free of borderline and personality disorders, which are the most commonly associated psychiatric comorbidities with intoxicated aggression and also known to have reduced white matter integrity in regions associated with risky behavior and impulsivity (Jiang et al, 2017 ; Ninomiya et al, 2018 ). Hence, more longitudinal studies are needed in the future to understand the effects of early life stress on the development of aggression-related psychiatric comorbidities from neurological perspectives.…”

Corticolimbic circuit structure moderates an association between early life stress and later trait anxiety

“…All diffusion MRI data were preprocessed in accordance with the protocol developed by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis consortium (ENIGMA; http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/protocols/dti-protocols). As these are standardized procedures made available by the ENIGMA consortium and further documented in our previously published work (Kim et al., 2019), a full description of diffusion MRI data preprocessing steps are provided in the Supplemental Methods available online. All diffusion-weighted images were visually inspected for artifacts, distortions and major head motions to ensure quality.…”

Maternal Protection in Childhood is Associated with Amygdala Reactivity and Structural Connectivity in Adulthood

“…Since we again did not have a priori predictions regarding hemispheric differences, and to reduce the number of statistical tests, the extracted FA values were averaged across left and right hemispheres for further statistical analyses (d' Arbeloff et al, 2018;Kim et al, 2019).…”