Total brain, total gray matter, total white matter, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, amygdala volumes in patients with adjustment disorder and relationship with the clinical variabilities

Adjustment Disorder (AD) is a mental disorder that occurs due to stress factors and manifests itself with non-lasting emotional or behavioural symptoms. In this thesis, we aimed to evaluate total brain volume, total grey matter volume, total white matter volume, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) volume, hippocampus (HC) volume and amygdala volume in patients with adjustment disorder by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Nineteen patients diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder and 18 healthy controls who were admitted to the Mental Health and Diseases Clinic of Fırat University Hospital as outpatients or inpatients participated in the study. Sociodemographic and Clinical Data Form, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) , Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Global Assessment Scale (GAS), Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory (HRLSI) were applied and brain volumes were measured by MRI. Right hippocampus volumes were significantly smaller in the patient group diagnosed with adjustment disorder. Total brain volume, total grey matter volume, total white matter volume, anterior cingulate cortex volumes, amygdala volumes and left hippocampus volumes were smaller in the patient group but not statistically significant. In conclusion, our study is one of the first brain imaging studies in patients with Adjustment Disorder. It needs to be supported by studies with larger sample groups.