Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, UK; and Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yolanda R. Schlumpf
Clienia Littenheid AG, Private Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Littenheid, Switzerland; and Heelzorg, Centre for Psychotrauma, Zwolle, The Netherlands
Eline M. Vissia
Heelzorg, Centre for Psychotrauma, Zwolle, The Netherlands
Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis
Department of Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, UK
Lutz Jäncke
Division of Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland; and Research Unit for Plasticity and Learning of the Healthy Aging Brain, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Sima Chalavi
Movement Control and Neuroplasticity Research Group, Department of Movement Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Dick J. Veltman
Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Studies investigating the structure of the amygdala in relation to dissociation in psychiatric disorders are limited and have reported normal or preserved, increased or decreased global volumes. Thus, a more detailed investigation of the amygdala is warranted. Amygdala global and subregional volumes were compared between individuals with dissociative identity disorder (DID: n = 32) and healthy controls (n = 42). Analyses of covariance did not show volumetric differences between the DID and control groups. Although several unknowns make it challenging to interpret our findings, we propose that the finding of normal amygdala volume is a genuine finding because other studies using this data-set have presented robust morphological aberrations in relation to the diagnosis of DID.
