Exploring volumetric abnormalities in subcortical L-HPA axis structures in pediatric generalized anxiety disorder

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographics, descriptive statistics, and analyses between GAD and controls.

	GAD (N = 15)	Controls (N = 23)	Statistic	p	Effect size
Demographics			t		d
Age at scan	6.87 (1.06)	7.48 (1.04)	1.76	.087	.58
IQ	103.53 (11.51)	104.48 (14.03)	0.20	.829	.07
			χ^2		φ
Gender (M/F)	3/12	6/16	2.22	.136	.24
Scanner site (1/2)	8/7	7/16	1.99	.158	.23
Handedness (0/1)	14/1	16/7	3.09	.079	.28
Ethnicity (0/1)	6/9	13/10	0.99	.319	.32
Poverty status (0/1)	10/5	18/4	1.11	.292	.29
Structural measures (mm^3)			F	pFDR	η^2
BLA	2518.60 (204.49)	2486.56 (272.48)	4.85	.052	.14
vSC	1658.75 (98.60)	1613.97 (128.23)	6.50	.048	.17
MDm	345.11 (44.07)	334.13 (48.89)	4.01	.054	.12
Exploratory analyses				pFDR
L. BLA	1242.46 (122.93)	1219.65 (142.90)	3.48	.085	.10
R. BLA	1276.14 (108.92)	1266.92 (135.18)	5.13	.031	.14
L. vSC	174.00 (26.77)	168.13 (26.40)	4.99	.049	.14
R. vSC	171.11 (22.80)	166.00 (24.61)	5.33	.031	.15
L. MDm	817.45 (45.11)	805.87 (75.33)	0.89	.352	.03
R. MDm	841.29 (68.28)	808.10 (64.47)	8.13	.024	.21

GAD: generalized anxiety disorder; BLA: basolateral amygdalar complex; vSC: ventral hippocampal subiculum; MDm: mediodorsal medial magnocellular nucleus of the thalamus; L: left; R: right; p_FDR: false discovery rate-adjusted p value.

Measures are given in the format: mean (SD) where appropriate. t-tests (t) and Chi-square (χ²) were conducted between demographic measures to investigate whether further covarying was needed. Univariate analyses were used to investigate volumetric differences controlled for intracranial volume, age, IQ, gender, and scanner site.

Figure 1. Subcortical regions of interest in MNI152 space. BLA: basolateral complex of amygdala; vSC: ventral subiculum of hippocampus; MDm: mediodorsal medial magnocellular area of thalamus.

Data availability statement

The employed dataset, titled “Preschool Anxiety Disorders”, is hosted by OpenNeuro (OpenNeuro.org) and has the accession number: ds000144 (https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds000144/versions/00002). All data are freely available under the Creative Commons CC0 Universal license. For additional details, refer to the original paper in which these data appeared [47].