Abstract
There may be distinct conduct disorder (CD) etiologies and neural morphologies in adolescents with high callous unemotional (CU) traits versus low CU traits. Here, we employed surface-based morphometry methods to investigate morphological differences in adolescents diagnosed with CD [42 with high CU traits (CD-HCU) and 40 with low CU traits (CD-LCU)] and healthy controls (HCs, N = 115) in China. Whole-brain analyses revealed significantly increased cortical surface area (SA) in the left inferior temporal cortex and the right precuneus, but decreased SA in the left superior temporal cortex in the CD-LCU group, compared with the HC group. There were no significant cortical SA differences between the CD-HCU and the HC groups. Compared to the CD-HCU group, the CD-LCU group had a greater cortical thickness (CT) in the left rostral middle frontal cortex. Region-of-interest analyses revealed significant group differences in the right hippocampus, with CD-HCU group having lower right hippocampal volumes than HCs. We did not detect significant group differences in the amygdalar volume, however, the right amygdalar volume was found to be a significant moderator of the correlation between CU traits and the proactive aggression in CD patients. The present results suggested that the manifestations of CD differ between those with high CU traits versus low CU traits, and underscore the importance of sample characteristics in understanding the neural substrates of CD.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81471384), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515011359), and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (no. 20130162110043). The authors express special thanks to Stephane A. De Brito, PhD of the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, for his suggestions to improve the manuscript. The authors also thank all the adolescents and their parents and teachers who participated in this study.
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Jiang, Y., Gao, Y., Dong, D. et al. Structural abnormalities in adolescents with conduct disorder and high versus low callous unemotional traits. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 32, 193–203 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-021-01890-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-021-01890-8