Sex-Related Difference in Amygdala Activity during Emotionally Influenced Memory Storage

Cahill, Larry; Haier, Richard J.; White, T. Nathan S.; Fallon, James H.; Kilpatrick, Lisa A.; Lawrence, Chris; Potkin, Steven G.; Alkire, Michael T.

doi:10.1006/nlme.2000.3999

Cited by 375 publications

(251 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Therefore, it is possible that any influence of prenatal hormones on borderline personality may be driven primarily by an atypical sexual differentiation of brain regions integral to mood and behavioral regulation (e.g., the amygdala and hypothalamus). This speculation is supported by other research showing that sex-specific patterns of activation occur in the amygdala following exposure to emotional stimuli (Cahill et al, 2001;Canli, Desmond, Zhao, & Gabrieli, 2002;Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2001) and recent evidence that borderline personality is associated with an altered brain morphology in systems for emotional processing, including the amygdala (Schmahl & Bremner, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Hormones and borderline personality features

Evardone

Alexander

Morey

2008

Personality and Individual Differences

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Borderline personality is diagnosed in clinical settings three times more often in women than in men, and symptom severity in women appears sensitive to circulating sex steroid levels. In non-human mammals, prenatal hormones contribute to the development of sex-linked behavior and their responsiveness to postnatal hormones. Therefore, this study examined the hypothesis that prenatal hormones may influence the development of borderline personality traits by measuring a marker of perinatal androgen action, the 2D:4D ratio, and salivary hormone levels in 58 men and 52 women. Participants completed the Borderline Features Subscales (BOR) of the Personality Assessment Inventory, gender role questionnaires, and four sex-linked cognitive tasks. Digit ratios were a significant predictor of the affective component of borderline personality, such that in both sexes 2D:4D ratios suggestive of weaker perinatal androgen action contributed to greater borderline personality features overall and greater affective instability. In addition, women reporting greater affective instability showed larger changes in estradiol across the session, consistent with the influence of stress and emotional reactivity on hormonal function. These findings are consistent with an increasing body of research suggesting that hormonal factors associated with the expression of typical gender-linked behavior may also contribute to the expression of gender-linked maladaptive behavior.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Hormones and borderline personality features

Evardone

Alexander

Morey

2008

Personality and Individual Differences

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“…While the cause of these gender differences remains unknown, with some work indicating that cultural factors such a gender inequality may modulate these differences (Riley et al., 2016), it remains an interesting question for future work whether males and females differ in their sustained attention ability independent of early life experiences and whether a history of early life trauma interacts with any potential baseline differences. Additionally, baseline differences in amygdala functional connectivity have been observed across men and women (Kilpatrick, Zald, Pardo, & Cahill, 2006), as well as differences in evoked amygdala activity during an emotional memory task (Cahill et al., 2001). To our knowledge, no work thus far has directly tested for gender differences in amygdala activity on sustained attention or vigilance tasks using nonaffective stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To our knowledge, no work thus far has directly tested for gender differences in amygdala activity on sustained attention or vigilance tasks using nonaffective stimuli. Given the current literature on gender differences in amygdala functioning on affective tasks (Cahill et al., 2001; Killgore, Oki, & Yurgelun‐Todd, 2001; Schneider, Habel, Kessler, Salloum, & Posse, 2000), however, future work including greater numbers of female veterans may help to uncover any potential gender differences in the relationship between amygdala functioning and sustained attention ability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpersonal early‐life trauma alters amygdala connectivity and sustained attention performance

et al. 2017

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IntroductionInterpersonal early life trauma (I‐ELT) is associated with a myriad of functional impairments in adulthood, increased risk of drug addiction, and neuropsychiatric disorders. While deficits in emotional regulation and amygdala functioning are well characterized, deficits in general cognitive functioning have also been documented. However, the neural underpinnings of cognitive dysfunction in adults with a history of I‐ELT and the potential relationship between amygdala‐based functional connectivity and behavioral performance are currently poorly understood. This study examined how I‐ELT affects the cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting sustained attention.MethodsA total of 66 Veterans (18 with and 48 without a history of I‐ELT) completed a nonemotional sustained attention task during functional MRI.ResultsThe individuals with I‐ELT showed significant impairments in sustained attention (i.e., higher error rates, greater response variability). This cohort exhibited increased amygdala functional connectivity with the prefrontal cortex and decreased functional connectivity with the parahippocampal gyrus when compared to those without I‐ELT. These connections were significantly correlated with individual differences in sustained attention performance. Notably, classification analyses revealed that the pattern of amygdala connectivity across the whole brain was able to classify I‐ELT status with 70% accuracy.ConclusionThese results provide evidence of a lasting negative impact for those with a history of I‐ELT on sustained attention ability. They also highlight a critical role for amygdala functioning in cognitive control and sustained attention for those with a history of I‐ELT, which may underlie the observed attention deficits in clinical assessments and cognitive tests involving both emotional and nonemotional stimuli.

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“…Several recent studies have indicated gender differences in the neural processing of emotional memories (Cahill et al, 2001;Canli, Desmond, Zhao, & Gabrieli, 2002) and responsiveness to memory modulation techniques . The present study was not designed to evaluate gender differences, having a ratio of >3:1 females.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%