Structural and functional MRI study of the brain, cognition and mood in long-term adequately treated Hashimoto’s thyroiditis Eva M. Quinque a, * , Stefan Karger b , Katrin Are´lin a,c,d , Matthias L. Schroeter a,c,d , Ju¨rgen Kratzsch e , Arno Villringer a,c,d a Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany b Clinic for Endocrinology and Nephrology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany c Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany d Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany e Institute for Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Diagnostics, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Received 27 August 2013; received in revised form 9 January 2014; accepted 22 January 2014 Psychoneuroendocrinology (2014) 42, 188—198 KEYWORDS Hypothyroidism; Hashimoto’s thyroiditis; Thyroidperoxidase antibodies; MRI; VBM; Restingstate; fMRI; Event-related fMRI; Associative memory; Cognition; Mood Abstract The current study investigated neuropsychological and underlying structural and functional brain alterations in long-term adequately treated patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in order to examine much discussed residual complaints in patients in relation to possible long- term neural alterations with a specific interest in the underlying autoimmune process. Eighteen patients with treated hypothyroidism due to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (mean age 32, range 18—54 years; two males; mean treatment duration 4.4 years) and 18 healthy matched control subjects underwent 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Voxel-based morphometry was used to investigate grey matter density, resting-state functional MRI to analyse the brain connectivity of areas known to be altered in hypothyroidism and event-related functional MRI to examine brain activity during associative memory encoding. Neuropsychological assessment included memory, working memory, psychomotor speed and attention. We previously reported subclinically reduced mood in this study population and investigated its neural correlates here. Thyroid stimulating hormone, free triiodthyronine, free thyroxine and thyroid peroxidase anti- bodies were measured in serum. We did not find cognitive deficits or alterations in grey matter density, functional connectivity or associative memory-related brain activity in comparison to the control group and cognition was unrelated to thyroid serum measures in the patient group. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies in the patient group correlated with increased grey matter density in right amygdala and enhanced * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 341 9940 2412; fax: +49 341 9940 2221. E-mail address: weig@cbs.mpg.de (E.M. Quinque). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect jou rn a l home pag e : ww w. el sev ier. com/ loca te /psyn eu en 0306-4530/$ — see front matter # 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.01.015