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Reduced cortical surface area in adolescents with conduct disorder

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Abstract

Children with conduct disorder (CD) are at increased risk of developing antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy in adulthood. Neuroimaging research has identified abnormal cortical volume (CV) in CD. However, CV comprises two genetically and developmentally separable components: cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA). Aim of this study is to explore the relationship between the cortical constituents of CV in boys with CD. We applied FreeSurfer software to structural MRI data to derive measures of CV, CT, and SA in 21 boys with CD and 19 controls. Relationships between these cortical measures were investigated. Boys with CD had significantly reduced CV and SA compared to non-CD boys in ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We found no significant between-group differences in CT. Reduced prefrontal CV in boys with CD is associated with significantly reduced SA in the same regions. This finding may help to identify specific neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying cortical deficits observed in CD.

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Acknowledgments

This work was generously funded by a private donation; together with infrastructure support from the Mortimer D and Theresa Sackler Foundation, the Medical Research Council (MRC, UK) AIMS Network (G0400061/69344, DGMM, principle investigator), an ongoing MRC funded study of brain myelination in neurodevelopmental disorders (G0800298/87573), and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

This study was approved by the Joint South London and Maudsley Research Ethics Committee (243/00) and was therefore conducted in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sackler Institute for Translational Neurodevelopment, and the Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Sagari Sarkar, Eileen Daly, Yue Feng, Christine Ecker, Michael C. Craig, Duncan Harding, Quinton Deeley & Declan G. M. Murphy

  2. NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Christine Ecker, Michael C. Craig, Quinton Deeley & Declan G. M. Murphy

  3. Department of Neuroimaging, Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Sagari Sarkar

  4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Duncan Harding

  5. National Autism Unit, Bethlem Royal Hospital, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Beckenham, Kent, UK

    Michael C. Craig

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  1. Sagari Sarkar
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  2. Eileen Daly
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  4. Christine Ecker
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  7. Quinton Deeley
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  8. Declan G. M. Murphy
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Correspondence to Sagari Sarkar.

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The last two authors contributed equally to the production of this manuscript.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. Figure 2: Results of uncorrected exploratory analysis into between group differences in cortical anatomy. Figure 2: Spatially distributed differences in (A) cortical thickness; (B) surface area; and (C) cortical volume between boys with CD and healthy controls (p<0.05, uncorrected). Relative deficits in CD are displayed in cyan/blue, while relative excesses are shown in red/yellow. Surfaces are presented in lateral, medial and frontal view for the left and right pial (outer) surfaces. Figure 3: Results of further analysis show no between group differences in local gyrification index (lGI) at the cluster level.Figure 4: Exploratory analysis showing excluding IQ as a covariate. Figure 4: shows that cluster level between group differences in cortical surface area remain unchanged by removal of IQ as a covariate.

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Sarkar, S., Daly, E., Feng, Y. et al. Reduced cortical surface area in adolescents with conduct disorder. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 24, 909–917 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-014-0639-3

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