ADVERTISEMENT
Frequent Manic Episodes Associated With Abnormal Fronto-Cortical Thinning in Bipolar Disorder
Abnormal fronto-cortical thinning may be associated with manic episodes in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), according to research published in Biological Psychiatry.
“Bipolar disorder is associated with cortical and subcortical structural brain abnormalities. It is unclear whether such alterations progressively change over time, and how this is related to the number of mood episodes,” wrote Christoph Abe, PhD, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and co-investigators.
The researchers aimed to examine structural brain changes over time in patients with BD.
A diverse international sample with clinical data and longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from the ENIGMA-BD Working Group were analyzed. A total of 307 patients with BD and 925 healthy controls from 14 international sites were examined in this study. Participants had MRIs performed twice, and researchers estimated for cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volumes.
Annualized change rates in the healthy control group were compared to the patients with BD for each imaging phenotype.
“Within patients, we related brain change rates to the number of mood episodes between time points and tested for effects of demographic and clinical variables,” Dr Abe wrote.
Patients with BD had faster enlargement of ventricular volumes when compared to healthy controls, in addition to a slower thinning of fusiform and parahippocampal cortex when compared to healthy controls. Higher rates of hypomanic episodes had a relationship to faster cortical thinning in the prefrontal cortex.
“In the hitherto largest longitudinal MRI study on BD, we did not detect accelerated cortical thinning but noted faster ventricular enlargements in BD. Abnormal fronto-cortical thinning was however observed in association with frequent manic episodes. Our study yields insights into disease progression in BD, and highlights the importance of mania prevention in BD treatment,” concluded Dr Abe, et al.
