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Anastasia Haidar, BS
Pronouns
Rank
Research Staff
Institution
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department
Psychiatry
Authors
Anastasia Haidar*, Elana Kotler, Felicia Petterway, Holly Carrington, Yaen Chen, Kendra Becker, Franziska Plessow, Jennifer J. Thomas, Madhusmita Misra, Kamryn T. Eddy, Elizabeth A. Lawson, Laura M. Holsen, Lauren Breithaupt, Amanda E. Lyall*
Principal Investigator
Dr. Amanda E. Lyall
Categories:
Cortisol is directly related to stress, a known risk factor for the development of eating disorders. Studies show elevated cortisol levels in individuals with eating disorders are associated with reduced grey and white matter. Yet, diffusion imaging studies remain divided on white matter changes. We use Free Water Imaging to determine if elevated cortisol is present in young women with eating disorders and examine the relationship between cortisol and average whole-brain measures of white matter microstructure. We hypothesize that individuals with eating disorders (ED) will have higher cortisol levels than healthy controls (HC) which will correlate positively with FW and negatively with FA/FAt.
Diffusion-weighted images were acquired for 63 ED and 30 HC female subjects. Average whole brain values of FW, Fractional Anisotropy (FA), and FAt were extracted from white matter skeletons. ANCOVAs were conducted between groups with body mass index and age as covariates to compare cortisol levels and whole-brain average FA, FAt, and FW. Spearman correlations for cortisol and white matter features were conducted for the whole group (HC+ED) and the separated by group (ED vs. HC).
ANCOVAs for cortisol and average whole brain values for FA, FAt, and FW showed no significant difference. Whole group correlations between cortisol and FA, FAt, and FW were non-significant. When separated by group, only the relationship between cortisol and FAt in healthy controls was significant (p = 0.046).
This is the first study using FW to investigate relationships between cortisol and white matter microstructure. Non-significant relationships between cortisol levels and white matter may be attributed to morning cortisol levels, while integrated measures of cortisol secretion (e.g. hair cortisol) are more informative. In the future, we aim to explore hair cortisol and white matter microstructure among eating disorder subtypes, as they may have differing neurobiology.
