Smaller volume of posterior thalamic nuclei in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

The thalamus and its subnuclei—a gateway to obsessive-compulsive disorder

“…However, we did find a sex-by-diagnosis interaction in adults for the anterior subregion (see Table S3 ), indicating that OCD-related volume differences are on average stronger in females than males. We should note that our findings in adults are partly consistent with recent work from Jurng et al in a sample that was also included in the current analysis [ 13 ]. While the current study found lower volumes of all subregions in adult OCD patients, Jurng et al found significant differences only in the posterior thalamus region that includes the pulvinar [ 13 ].…”

“…We should note that our findings in adults are partly consistent with recent work from Jurng et al in a sample that was also included in the current analysis [ 13 ]. While the current study found lower volumes of all subregions in adult OCD patients, Jurng et al found significant differences only in the posterior thalamus region that includes the pulvinar [ 13 ]. This difference is most likely explained by differences in sample size and the fact that only unmedicated patients were included in the Jurng et al sample.…”

“…The ventral nucleus group showed the largest difference, though this was no longer significant after correction for multiple comparisons [ 12 ]. Another recent study found that adult patients compared with controls had lower volumes of the left posterior thalamus, which includes the pulvinar and geniculate nuclei, and smaller posterior thalamus volume was also associated with a later age of onset of OCD [ 13 ]. A limitation of previous literature is the focus on a specific age group, limiting the ability to explore differences across the lifespan.…”

“…Based on the literature, we expected that pediatric OCD patients would show larger nuclei volumes compared with healthy controls, mostly driven by larger volume of the anterior and ventral thalamus. Furthermore, adult OCD patients were expected to have lower pulvinar volumes compared with healthy controls [ 13 ]. Based on our previous analyses on subcortical and cortical morphology, we expected that volume enlargement in children would be driven by unmedicated patients and lower volume in adults by medicated patients [ 3 , 15 ].…”

Potential structural trait markers of depression in the form of alterations in the structures of subcortical nuclei and structural covariance network properties

“…Previous studies have only explored the whole GMV alterations of these three subcortical regions but not explored its subregion by themselves like exploring frontal subregions (e.g., DLPFC, VLPFC), which showed that the analysis of these three subcortical regions was not comprehensive. With the development of imaging analysis technology ( Iglesias et al, 2018 , Iglesias et al, 2015 , Saygin et al, 2017 ), morphological studies based on the amygdalar, hippocampal and thalamic subregions have been applied to explore the potential neural mechanisms of disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease ( Pardilla-Delgado et al, 2021 ), Parkinson's disease ( Li et al, 2020 ), obsessive–compulsive disorder ( Jurng et al, 2021 , Weeland et al, 2021 ) and MDD ( Brown et al, 2019 , Kim et al, 2021 , Yao et al, 2020 ). Exploration of the subregions in the thalamus, amygdala and hippocampus may provide more information to identify the potential subcortical MDD trait markers.…”