Pervasively Thinner Neocortex as a Transdiagnostic Feature of General Psychopathology.

Neuroimaging research has revealed that structural brain alterations are common across broad diagnostic families of disorders rather than specific to a single psychiatric disorder. Such overlap in the structural brain correlates of mental disorders mirrors already well-documented phenotypic comorbidity of psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses, which can be indexed by a general psychopathology or Analyses were conducted on structural MRI and psychopathology data collected from 861 members of the population-representative Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study at age 45. Study members with high scores across three broad diagnostic families of disorders (externalizing, internalizing, thought disorder) exhibited highly overlapping patterns of reduced global and widely distributed parcel-wise neocortical thickness. Study members with high A pattern of pervasively reduced neocortical thickness appears to be common across all forms of mental disorders and may represent a transdiagnostic feature of general psychopathology. As has been documented with regard to symptoms and diagnoses, the underlying brain structural correlates of mental disorders may not exhibit specificity, and the continued pursuit of such specific correlates may limit progress toward more effective strategies for etiological understanding, prevention, and intervention.