Increased stressor-evoked cardiovascular reactivity is associated with reduced amygdala and hippocampus volume.
Gavin P TrotmanPeter J GianarosJet J C S Veldhuijzen van ZantenSarah E WilliamsAnnie T GintyPublished in: Psychophysiology (2018)
Exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The amygdala and hippocampus have been implicated in centrally mediating stressor-evoked cardiovascular reactivity. However, little is known about the associations of amygdala and hippocampus morphology with stressor-evoked cardiovascular reactivity. Forty (Mage = 19.05, SD = 0.22 years) healthy young women completed two separate testing sessions. Session 1 assessed multiple parameters of cardiovascular physiology at rest and during a validated psychological stress task (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test), using electrocardiography, Doppler echocardiography, and blood pressure monitoring. In Session 2, 1 year later, structural MRI was conducted. Brain structural volumes were computed using automated segmentation methods. Regression analyses, following Benjamini-Hochberg correction, showed that greater heart rate and cardiac output reactivity were associated with reduced amygdala and hippocampus gray matter volume. Systolic blood pressure reactivity was associated with reduced hippocampus volume. In contrast, no associations between diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial blood pressure, stroke volume, or total peripheral resistance reactivity with amygdala or hippocampus volumes were apparent. Comparison analyses examining insula volume found no significant associations. Some indicators of greater stressor-evoked cardiovascular reactivity associate with reduced amygdala and hippocampus gray matter volume, but the mechanisms of this association warrant further study.
Keyphrases
- blood pressure
- prefrontal cortex
- heart rate
- functional connectivity
- resting state
- cerebral ischemia
- hypertensive patients
- cardiovascular disease
- cognitive impairment
- left ventricular
- heart rate variability
- stress induced
- machine learning
- type diabetes
- magnetic resonance
- blood brain barrier
- atrial fibrillation
- heart failure
- deep learning
- temporal lobe epilepsy
- computed tomography
- physical activity
- subarachnoid hemorrhage
- high intensity
- hepatitis b virus
- working memory
- liver failure
- pulmonary hypertension
- high throughput
- insulin resistance
- coronary artery disease
- sleep quality
- single cell