Compulsivity and impulsivity traits linked to attenuated developmental frontostriatal myelination trajectories

• Published in: Nature neuroscience 2019-06, Vol.22 (6), p.992-999
• Main Authors: Ziegler, Gabriel, Hauser, Tobias U., Moutoussis, Michael, Bullmore, Edward T., Goodyer, Ian M., Fonagy, Peter, Jones, Peter B., Lindenberger, Ulman, Dolan, Raymond J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 59/57; 631/378; 631/378/1457/1945; 631/378/2649; 692/698/1688; Adolescent; Adolescents; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Behavioral Sciences; Biological Techniques; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain; Brain research; Compulsive behavior; Compulsive Behavior - pathology; Female; Health risk assessment; Humans; Impulse; Impulsive behavior; Impulsive Behavior - physiology; Impulsivity; Magnetic resonance imaging; Male; Mental disorders; Myelin; Myelination; Neural circuitry; Neurobiology; Neurodevelopmental disorders; Neuropsychology; Neurosciences; Prefrontal Cortex - growth & development; Prefrontal Cortex - pathology; Substantia alba; Substantia grisea; Trajectories; White Matter - growth & development; White Matter - pathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1097-6256; 1546-1726
• DOI: 10.1038/s41593-019-0394-3

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a period when ongoing brain development coincides with a substantially increased risk of psychiatric disorders. The developmental brain changes accounting for this emergent psychiatric symptomatology remain obscure. Capitalizing on a unique longitudinal dataset that includes in vivo myelin-sensitive magnetization transfer (MT) MRI scans, we show that this developmental period is characterized by brain-wide growth in MT trajectories within both gray matter and adjacent juxtacortical white matter. In this healthy population, the expression of common developmental traits, namely compulsivity and impulsivity, is tied to a reduced growth of these MT trajectories in frontostriatal regions. This reduction is most marked in dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal regions for compulsivity and in lateral and medial prefrontal regions for impulsivity. These findings highlight that psychiatric traits of compulsivity and impulsivity are linked to regionally specific reductions in myelin-related growth in late adolescent brain development. Ziegler, Hauser et al. report brain-wide, myelin-related microstructural growth from adolescence to adulthood and show that this longitudinal growth is reduced in the presence of compulsivity and impulsivity traits.