Structural Neuroimaging

We aim to examine the association between trait dissociation and brain anatomy in patients with a history of childhood trauma across a naturally divergent set of mental diagnoses. We hypothesize that dissociative coping mechanisms in response to childhood maltreatment are associated with structural alterations trans-diagnostically. Such anatomical differences may occur either via plastic adaptation to function or as a preexisting condition fostering function. Analyzing those structural alterations might help to further elucidate the neural correlates of dissociative processing. To this end, several data sets of structural MRI data are being analyzed to find neural correlates of trait dissociation.

Main project

This project is part of project "Neurobiology of Dissociation".

Researchers and partners

Behavioural and Social Sciences, Psychology

• Dr. J.K. (Judith) Daniels, Clinical Psychology

Partners outside of the University of Groningen

• Dr. Ilona Croy, Universität Dresden, Germany
• Prof. Dr. Ruth Lanius, Western University, Canada
• Prof. Henrik Walter, Charite Berlin, Germany

Results

Publications

• Daniels, J.K., Frewen, P., Lanius, R.A. (2016). Structural brain alterations associated with the dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 133(3), 232-40.
• Daniels, J.K., Gaebler, M., Lamke, J.-P., Walter, H. (2015). Grey matter alterations in depersonalization disorder - a voxel-based morphometry study. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 40(1), 19-27.