Hippocampus and amygdala volumes in patients with vaginismus.

AIM: To compare hippocampus and amygdala volumes of patients with vaginismus with those of healthy control subjects.

METHODS

Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on ten patients with vaginismus and ten control subjects matched for age and gender. Volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala were blindly measured.

RESULTS

We found that the mean right amygdala volume of patients with vaginismus were smaller than that of the healthy controls. With regard to hippocampus volumes, the mean left and right hippocampus volumes were smaller than those of the healthy controls.

CONCLUSION

Our present findings suggest that there have been hippocampus and amygdala structural abnormalities in patients with vaginismus. These changes provide the notion that vaginismus may be a fear-related condition.