Researchers identify neural markers to determine risk for mania vs. depression
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Neural markers can reliably distinguish mania/hypomania-specific risk from depression-specific risk in young adults, according to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry.
“To facilitate earlier and more accurate bipolar disorder diagnoses, there is a vital need for objective markers distinguishing risk for mania/hypomania from risk for depression,” Maya C. Schumer, BS, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine wrote. “Identifying neural markers associated with risk for these symptoms can provide objective markers reflecting underlying pathophysiological processes and neural targets to guide and monitor interventions for bipolar disorder.”
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The study included 299 people aged 18 to 30 years, split into three study groups. Schumer and colleagues combined three approaches to measure risk for mania/hypomania and depression, which included an approach-related emotion-processing task, examining large-scale neural networks and the Mood Spectrum Self-Report.
Researchers were able to identify neural variables related to mania/hypomania and depression risk in the discovery group and successfully replicated the results in two test groups.
Mania/hypomania risk was positively associated with bilateral amygdala-left amygdala functional connectivity and with bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex-right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex functional connectivity. Depression risk was positively associated with bilateral amygdala-left amygdala functional connectivity and negatively associated with right caudate activity.
“In this study of young adults, greater interamygdala functional connectivity was associated with greater risk of both mania/hypomania and depression,” Schumer and colleagues wrote. “By contrast, greater functional connectivity between ventral attention or salience and central executive networks and greater caudate deactivation were reliably associated with greater risk of mania/hypomania and depression, respectively.
“These replicated findings indicate promising neural markers distinguishing mania/hypomania–specific risk from depression-specific risk and may provide neural targets to guide and monitor interventions for mania/hypomania and depression in at-risk individuals.”