Reduced Volume of Limbic System-Affiliated Basal Ganglia in Mood Disorders

Volumes of basal ganglia in postmortem brains of 8 patients with mood disorders and 8 control subjects without neuropsychiatric disorder were determined. Morphometry of serial whole-brain sections under the control of postmortem artifacts revealed reduced volumes of the left nucleus accumbens (-32%,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences 1999-02, Vol.11 (1), p.71-78
Main Authors: Baumann, Bruno, Danos, Peter, Krell, Dieter, Diekmann, Silvia, Leschinger, Andreas, Stauch, Renate, Wurthmann, Cornelius, Bernstein, Hans-Gert, Bogerts, Bernhard
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Volumes of basal ganglia in postmortem brains of 8 patients with mood disorders and 8 control subjects without neuropsychiatric disorder were determined. Morphometry of serial whole-brain sections under the control of postmortem artifacts revealed reduced volumes of the left nucleus accumbens (-32%, P=0.01), the right and left external pallidum (-20%, P=0.04), and the right putamen (-15%, P=0.04) in the patient group compared with the control group. These results suggest that, in particular, the limbic loop of the basal ganglia involving the nucleus accumbens and the pallidum is affected in mood disorders.
ISSN:0895-0172
1545-7222
DOI:10.1176/jnp.11.1.71