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High levels of neuroticism are associated with decreased cortical folding of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

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An Erratum to this article was published on 04 May 2017

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Abstract

The personality trait neuroticism has been identified as a vulnerability factor for common psychiatric diseases and defining potential neuroanatomical markers for early recognition and prevention strategies is mandatory. Because both personality traits and cortical folding patterns are early imprinted and timely stable there is reason to hypothesize an association between neuroticism and cortical folding. Thus, to identify a putative linkage, we tested whether the degree of neuroticism is associated with local cortical folding in a sample of 109 healthy individuals using a surface-based MRI approach. Based on previous findings we additionally tested for a potential association with cortical thickness. We found a highly significant negative correlation between the degree of neuroticism and local cortical folding of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), i.e., high levels of neuroticism were associated with low cortical folding of the left DLPFC. No association was found with cortical thickness. The present study is the first to describe a linkage between the extent of local cortical folding and the individual degree of neuroticism in healthy subjects. Because neuroticism is a vulnerability factor for common psychiatric diseases such as depression our finding indicates that alterations of DLPFC might constitute a neurobiological marker elevating risk for psychiatric burden.

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  • 04 May 2017

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF Grant 01GW0740 and an IZKF Young Scientist Grant (to C. C. S.). The sponsor served no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital, Philosophenweg 3, 07740, Jena, Germany

    C. Christoph Schultz, Kathrin Koch, Claudia Schachtzabel, Ralf G. Schlösser, Heinrich Sauer & Gerd Wagner

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany

    Heide Warziniak

  3. Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Kathrin Koch

  4. TUM-Neuroimaging Center (TUM-NIC) of Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München TUM, Munich, Germany

    Kathrin Koch

  5. Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences GSN, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Biocenter, Munich, Germany

    Kathrin Koch

  6. Medical Physics Group, Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany

    Daniel Güllmar & Jürgen R. Reichenbach

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  1. C. Christoph Schultz
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Correspondence to C. Christoph Schultz.

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All the authors report no financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.

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The original version of this article was revised: The corresponding author C. Christoph Schultz was tagged incorrectly in the metadata of the article. This error has been corrected.

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0804-z.

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Schultz, C.C., Warziniak, H., Koch, K. et al. High levels of neuroticism are associated with decreased cortical folding of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 267, 579–584 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0795-9

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