Abstract
Background
Although the heritability of bipolar I disorder (BPI) is high, few magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) studies of siblings of bipolar patients exist. We performed MRI brain
scans on a nationwide sample of twins with BPI, as well as on their co-twins and a
demographically balanced sample of control twin subjects, to detect any structural
alterations related to the disorder and to the increased genetic risk.
Methods
The National Hospital Discharge Register, National Population Register, and Finnish
Twin Cohorts were used to identify bipolar twins. Structured diagnostic interviews
and MRI scans were obtained for 24 twins with BPI, 15 healthy co-twins, and 27 control
twin subjects.
Results
Patients and co-twins showed a significant decrease in left hemispheric white matter
volume. The disparity in patients was −16.1 cm3 (95% confidence interval [CI] −26.6, −5.6) and in co-twins −11.3 cm3 (95% CI −22.1, −0.4) compared with control twin subjects. No gray matter decrease
was seen in patients or co-twins.
Conclusions
The results of this first large-scale MRI study of twins with BPI, their co-twins,
and appropriate control twin subjects, suggest that alterations of the left hemisphere
white matter in BPI may reflect genetic factors predisposing to the disorder.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Biological PsychiatryAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
Adams JH, Graham DI (1985): The nervous system. In: Anderson JR, editor. Muir’s Textbook of Pathology, 12th ed. London, UK: Edward Arnold, 21.1–21.6
- Familial leukoencephalopathy in bipolar disorder.Am J Psychiatry. 1998; 155: 1605-1607
- An MRI study of temporal lobe structures in men with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.Biol Psychiatry. 2000; 48: 147-162
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 3rd ed. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC1987
- The neuropsychology and neuroanatomy of bipolar affective disorder.Bipolar Disord. 2001; 3: 106-150
- The somatics of psyche.Psychother Psychosom. 2002; 71: 180-189
- Volumetric brain imaging findings in mood disorders.Bipolar Disord. 2002; 4: 89-104
- Preliminary study of magnetic resonance imaging characteristics in 8- to 16-year-olds with mania.J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1995; 34: 742-749
- Differential effects of age on brain gray matter in bipolar patients and healthy individuals.Neuropsychobiology. 2001; 43: 242-247
- MRI study of posterior fossa structures and brain ventricles in bipolar patients.J Psychiatr Res. 2001; 35: 313-322
- Anatomical MRI study of subgenual prefrontal cortex in bipolar and unipolar subjects.Neuropsychopharmacology. 2002; 27: 792-799
- The inheritance of neuropsychological dysfunction in twins discordant for schizophrenia.Am J Hum Genet. 2000; 67: 369-382
- Regional gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid distributions in schizophrenic patients, their siblings, and controls.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998; 55: 1084-1091
- Heritability estimates for psychotic disorders.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1999; 56: 162-168
- Cognitive impairment and cerebral structure by MRI in bipolar disorder.Biol Psychiatry. 1990; 27: 1188-1196
- Sex differences in aging of the human frontal and temporal lobes.J Neurosci. 1994; 14: 4748-4755
- Neuroimaging abnormalities in the subgenual prefrontal cortex.Mol Psychiatry. 1998; 3: 220-226
- Neuropsychological function in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder.Br J Psychiatry. 1999; 175 (, 190–191): 246-251
- An MRI study of adolescent patients with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder as compared to healthy control subjects.Biol Psychiatry. 1999; 46: 78-88
- Manic-Depressive Illness. Oxford Unversity Press, New York1990
- Neuropsychological performance of monozygotic twins discordant for bipolar disorder.Biol Psychiatry. 1999; 45: 639-646
- The neuropathology of primary mood disorder.Brain. 2002; 125: 1428-1449
- Volumetric MRI measurements in bipolars compared with schizophrenics and healthy controls.Psychol Med. 1994; 24: 689-699
- Subgenual cingulate cortex volume in first-episode psychosis.Am J Psychiatry. 1999; 156: 1091-1093
- NRIA—New Region of Interest Analysis: Brain Behavior Laboratory. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania1999
- Temporal lobe structure as determined by nuclear magnetic resonance in schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1989; 52: 736-741
- Population-based twin registries.Acta Genet Med Gemellol. 1990; 39: 427-439
- A pilot Swedish twin study of affective illness including hospital- and population-ascertained subsamples.Behav Genet. 1995; 25: 217-232
- Different trait markers for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.Psychol Med. 2001; 31: 915-922
- Accuracy of register- and record-based bipolar I diagnoses in Finland—a study of twins.Acta Neuropsychiatrica. 2000; 12: 106-109
- The volumetric findings in MRI brain study of bipolar twins and their healthy co-twins.Bipolar Disord. 2002; 4: 33-34
- Random-effects models for longitudinal data.Biometrics. 1982; 38: 963-974
Leeson CR, Leeson TS, Paparo AA (1985): Nervous tissue. Histology, 5th ed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 199–235
- Cortical gray matter deficit in patients with bipolar disorder.Schizophr Res. 1999; 40: 219-227
- Regional prefrontal gray and white matter abnormalities in bipolar disorder.Biol Psychiatry. 2002; 52: 93-100
- White matter hyperintensities on magnetic resonance imaging of the brain in children with psychiatric disorders.Compr Psychiatry. 2002; 43: 361-368
- S-Plus 5 for UNIX Guide to Statistics. MathSoft, Data Analysis Products Division, Seattle, WA1998
- Lithium-induced increase in human brain grey matter.Lancet. 2000; 356: 1241-1242
- A volumetric magnetic resonance imaging study of monozygotic twins discordant for bipolar disorder.Psychiatry Res. 2001; 106: 25-34
- Glial reduction in the subgenual prefrontal cortex in mood disorders.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998; 95: 13290-13295
- Structural and functional brain changes in bipolar disorder.Schizophr Res. 1999; 39: 133-140
- Ziskind-Somerfeld Research Award 1996. Medial and superior temporal gyral volumes and cerebral asymmetry in schizophrenia versus bipolar disorder.Biol Psychiatry. 1997; 41: 1-14
- Longitudinal changes in magnetic resonance imaging brain volumes in abstinent and relapsed alcoholics.Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1995; 19: 1177-1191
- Increased presence of white matter hyperintensities in adolescent patients with bipolar disorder.Psychiatry Res. 2002; 114: 51-56
- Cell pathology in mood disorders.Semin Clin Neuropsychiatry. 2002; 7: 281-292
- Diagnosis of twin zygosity by mailed questionnaire.Hum Hered. 1978; 28: 241-254
- Increased gray matter volume in lithium-treated bipolar disorder patients.Neurosci Lett. 2002; 329: 243-245
- Frontosubcortical neuroanatomy and the continuous performance test in mania.Am J Psychiatry. 1999; 156: 139-141
- Decreased regional cortical gray matter volume in schizophrenia.Am J Psychiatry. 1994; 151: 842-848
- The anatomy of mood disorders—review of structural neuroimaging studies.Biol Psychiatry. 1997; 41: 86-106
- The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and II Disorders (SCID I-II). American Psychiatric Press, Washington, DC1997
- Volumetric MRI studies of mood disorders.Bipolar Disord. 2002; 4: 80-88
- Brain magnetic resonance imaging of structural abnormalities in bipolar disorder.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1999; 56: 254-260
- Structural brain abnormalities in first-episode mania.Biol Psychiatry. 1993; 33: 602-609
- Does an increase in sulcal or ventricular fluid predict where brain tissue is lost?.J Neuroimaging. 1999; 9: 201-209
- Frontal and temporal lobe brain volumes in schizophrenia. Relationship to symptoms and clinical subtype.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1995; 52: 1061-1070
Van der Knaap MS, Valk J (1995a): Myelin and white matter. Magnetic Resonance of Myelin, Myelination, and Myelin Disorders. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1–17
Van der Knaap MS, Valk J (1995b): Pattern recognition in white matter disorders. Magnetic Resonance of Myelin, Myelination, and Myelin Disorders, 2nd ed. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 428–444
- Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries and Causes of Death. 8th ed. World Health Organization, Geneva1967
- An adaptive Bayesian approach to three-dimensional MR brain segmentation.in: Bizais Y. Barillot C. Paola R.D. Information Processing in Medical Imaging. Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York1995: 201-213
- Deficits in gray matter volume are present in schizophrenia but not bipolar disorder.Schizophr Res. 1997; 26: 85-92
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 24,
2003
Received in revised form:
March 20,
2003
Received:
October 31,
2002
Identification
Copyright
© 2003 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
