Adolescent to young adult longitudinal development of subcortical volumes in two European sites with four waves

Lea L Backhausen; Juliane H Fröhner; Hervé Lemaître; Eric Artiges; Marie-Laure Palillère Martinot; Megan M Herting; Fabio Sticca; Tobias Banaschewski; Gareth J Barker; Arun L W Bokde; Sylvane Desrivières; Herta Flor; Antoine Grigis; Hugh Garavan; Penny Gowland; Andreas Heinz; Rüdiger Brühl; Frauke Nees; Dimitri Papadopoulos-Orfanos; Luise Poustka; Sarah Hohmann; Lauren Robinson; Henrik Walter; Jeanne Winterer; Robert Whelan; Gunter Schumann; Jean-Luc Martinot; Michael N Smolka; Nora C Vetter; IMAGEN Consortium

doi:10.1002/hbm.26574

Adolescent to young adult longitudinal development of subcortical volumes in two European sites with four waves

Hum Brain Mapp. 2024 Feb 15;45(3):e26574. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26574.

Authors

Lea L Backhausen^{1

2}, Juliane H Fröhner¹, Hervé Lemaître^{3

4}, Eric Artiges^{5

6}, Marie-Laure Palillère Martinot^{5

7}, Megan M Herting⁸, Fabio Sticca⁹, Tobias Banaschewski¹⁰, Gareth J Barker¹¹, Arun L W Bokde¹², Sylvane Desrivières¹³, Herta Flor^{14

15}, Antoine Grigis³, Hugh Garavan¹⁶, Penny Gowland¹⁷, Andreas Heinz¹⁸, Rüdiger Brühl¹⁹, Frauke Nees^{10

14

20}, Dimitri Papadopoulos-Orfanos³, Luise Poustka²¹, Sarah Hohmann^{10

22}, Lauren Robinson²³, Henrik Walter¹⁸, Jeanne Winterer^{18

24}, Robert Whelan²⁵, Gunter Schumann^{13

26

27}, Jean-Luc Martinot⁵, Michael N Smolka¹, Nora C Vetter^{1

2

28}; IMAGEN Consortium

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany.
² Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical Faculty and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany.
³ NeuroSpin, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴ Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives, UMR 5293, CNRS, CEA, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
⁵ Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, INSERM U1299 "Trajectoires Développementales en Psychiatrie", Université Paris-Saclay, Ecole Normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre Borelli, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, Lab-D-Psy, EPS Barthélémy Durand, Etampes, France.
⁷ AP-HP, Sorbonne Université, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
⁸ Departments of Population and Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
⁹ Institute for Educational Support for Behaviour, Social-Emotional, and Psychomotor Development, University of Teacher Education in Special Needs, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
¹¹ Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
¹² Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
¹³ Centre for Population Neuroscience and Precision Medicine (PONS), Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, SGDP Centre, King's College London, London, UK.
¹⁴ Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
¹⁶ Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA.
¹⁷ Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK.
¹⁸ Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
¹⁹ Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig, Germany.
²⁰ Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Medical Center Schleswig Holstein, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
²¹ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
²² Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
²³ Department of Psychological Medicine, Section for Eating Disorders, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
²⁴ Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
²⁵ School of Psychology and Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
²⁶ PONS Research Group, Dept of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Campus Charite Mitte, Humboldt University, Berlin and Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
²⁷ Institute for Science and Technology of Brain-Inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
²⁸ Department of Psychology, MSB Medical School Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Adolescent subcortical structural brain development might underlie psychopathological symptoms, which often emerge in adolescence. At the same time, sex differences exist in psychopathology, which might be mirrored in underlying sex differences in structural development. However, previous studies showed inconsistencies in subcortical trajectories and potential sex differences. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the subcortical structural trajectories and their sex differences across adolescence using for the first time a single cohort design, the same quality control procedure, software, and a general additive mixed modeling approach. We investigated two large European sites from ages 14 to 24 with 503 participants and 1408 total scans from France and Germany as part of the IMAGEN project including four waves of data acquisition. We found significantly larger volumes in males versus females in both sites and across all seven subcortical regions. Sex differences in age-related trajectories were observed across all regions in both sites. Our findings provide further evidence of sex differences in longitudinal adolescent brain development of subcortical regions and thus might eventually support the relationship of underlying brain development and different adolescent psychopathology in boys and girls.

Keywords: adolescence; longitudinal; neurodevelopment; sex differences; structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI); subcortical.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adolescent Development
Brain* / diagnostic imaging
Female
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Magnetic Resonance Imaging* / methods
Male
Sex Characteristics
Young Adult

Abstract

MeSH terms

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