Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems have substantially less brain gray matter volume.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Structural neuroimaging studies have demonstrated lower regional gray matter volume in adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems. These research studies, including ours, have generally focused on male-only or mixed-sex samples of adolescents with conduct and/or substance problems. Here we compare gray matter volume between female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems and female healthy controls of similar ages.

Hypotheses

Female adolescents with severe substance and conduct problems will show significantly less gray matter volume in frontal regions critical to inhibition (i.e. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), conflict processing (i.e., anterior cingulate), valuation of expected outcomes (i.e., medial

SUBMITTER: Dalwani MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4441424 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature