Examining Associations Between Severity of Parental Depression and Anxiety Symptoms and Offspring Grey Matter
Date
2022-07-18
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The aim of this thesis was to explore associations between severity of parental depression and anxiety symptoms, and offspring brain structure. Additionally, to see whether certain brain regions in offspring were uniquely associated to parental depression versus anxiety. One hundred and twenty-four adolescents aged 11-18 years (M= 13.64, SD= 1.51) were included in the final analysis. Each adolescent had to have at least one parent with a diagnosed mood disorder as per the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). Adolescents themselves were to be free of any psychopathology at baseline as per the MINI-Kid. Parents filled out the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) to assess current symptom severity and youths underwent magnetic resonance imaging on a 3 Tesla magnet to obtain brain structure data. Bivariate correlations revealed that higher parental depression scores were associated with greater cortical thickness in the left middle temporal gyrus, and that higher parental anxiety scores were associated with greater cortical thickness in the right middle temporal gyrus. After controlling for offspring age and intracranial volume (ICV), the left middle temporal gyrus remained significantly associated with parental depression and the right middle temporal gyrus was no longer significantly associated with parental anxiety. Higher parental anxiety scores were significantly associated with cortical thinning in the left inferior parietal region when controlling for offspring age and ICV. Greater cortical thickness in the left middle temporal gyrus was uniquely associated with higher parental depression scores, and reduced cortical thickness in the left inferior parietal region was uniquely associated with higher parental anxiety scores. These findings suggest that even within a group of high-risk adolescents, there may be elevated risk for altered grey matter volume and thickness depending on parent symptom severity.
Description
Keywords
MRI, Neuroimaging, Brain Structure, High-risk, Development, psychopathology, depression, anxiety
Citation
Kemp, J. V. A. (2022). Examining Associations Between Severity of Parental Depression and Anxiety Symptoms and Offspring Grey Matter (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.