Amygdala and hippocampal volumes in patient with generalized anxiety disorder and relationship with the clinical variabilities

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a psychiatric disorder whose properties of diagnosis were well-determined, can be classified in anxiety disorders. Recently, in neuroimaging studies, some abnormalities that may be related to the signs and symptoms of the disease have been shown. In this study; it has been aimed to investigate the morphometric alterations of amygdala and hippocampus in GAD patients for understanding the pathophysiology. The study comprised 20 GAD patients who had applied to Firat University Hospital Department of Psychiatry as out- or in- patients and had been diagnosed with GAD according to the criteria of DSM-IV and 20 healthy controls. The patients were administered the sociodemographical data form, Beck Depression Scale, Beck Anxiety Scale and SCID. The volumetric measurements of amygdala and hippocampus was performed on patients and control group by using MRI. For the left and right amygdala volumes and right hippocampus volumes there were no differences between the patients and healthy controls while the patients group had greater left hippocampus volumes compared with healthy controls and there was reverse corelation between beck anxiety scale points and left hippocampal volumes. This can be considered hippocampus has a relationship with both pathophysiology and clinical course of the disease. Our study suggested that the investigations which use together the imaging technique that examine the functional qualifications of this area and the tests research the cognitive functions, make us to provide to reach more important and effective results. Key Words: Generalized anxiety disorder, Volume, Amygdala, Hippocampus, MRI