Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Altamura, A. Carlo
• Maggioni, Eleonora
• Dhanoa, Taj
• Ciappolino, Valentina
• Paoli, Riccardo A.
• Cremaschi, Laura
• Prunas, Cecilia
• Orsenigo, Giulia
• Caletti, Elisabetta
• Cinnante, Claudia M.
• Triulzi, Fabio M.
• Dell'Osso, Bernardo
• Yatham, Lakshmi
• Brambilla, Paolo

Titel

The impact of psychosis on brain anatomy in bipolar disorder: A structural MRI study

Ist Teil von

• Journal of affective disorders, 2018-06, Vol.233, p.100-109

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Bipolar disorder (BD) is a major psychiatric illness characterized by heterogeneous symptoms including psychotic features. Up until now, neuroimaging studies investigating cerebral morphology in patients with BD have underestimated the potential impact of psychosis on brain anatomy in BD patients. In this regard, psychotic and non-psychotic BD may represent biologically different subtypes of the disorder, being possibly associated with specific cerebral features. In the present study, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3T was used to identify the neuroanatomical correlates of psychosis in an International sample of BD patients. A large sample of structural MRI data from healthy subjects (HC) and BD patients was collected across two research centers. Voxel based morphometry was used to compare gray matter (GM) volume among psychotic and non-psychotic BD patients and HC. We found specific structural alterations in the two patient groups, more extended in the psychotic sample. Psychotic patients showed GM volume deficits in left frontal cortex compared to HC, and in right temporo-parietal cortex compared to both HC and non-psychotic patients (p < 0.001, > 100 voxels). Psychotic patients also exhibited enhanced age-related GM volume deficits in a set of subcortical and cortical regions. The integration of multiple datasets may have affected the results. Overall, our results confirm the importance of classifying BD based on psychosis. The knowledge of the neuronal bases of psychotic symptomatology in BD can provide a more comprehensive picture of the determinants of BD, in the light of the continuum characteristic of major psychoses. •The impact of psychosis on brain anatomy in bipolar disorder is underestimated.•We study the neuroanatomical correlates of psychosis in bipolar disorder patients.•Gray matter volume alterations are enhanced in psychotic patients.•Results confirm the importance of classifying bipolar patients based on psychosis.