Prior research has clearly shown that brain emotion circuitry is
dysregulated in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It is
thought that these disturbances impair one's ability to control emotion
and contribute to mood episodes.
Continuing this line of research, the January 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry reports
the results of a study conducted by scientists from Indiana University
School of Medicine. These investigators used functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate which areas of the brain showed
abnormal activation while patients in different mood phases of bipolar
disorder tried to control their response to emotional and non-emotional
material.
This allowed them to analyze brain activation patterns based on
patient mood (manic, depressed, or euthymic) and stimuli type (emotion
versus no emotion and happy versus sad). Because medication effects on
brain activation have been observed in some studies, the researchers
recruited only unmedicated volunteers.
They found that bipolar depressed patients abnormally activated brain
areas when they had to withhold responses to sad faces. Manic patients,
on the other hand, had abnormal activation regardless of whether they
were trying to withhold response to sad faces, happy faces or
non-emotional material. Even the euthymic bipolar subjects showed
abnormal activation of cortical areas of the brain while withholding
responses to emotional faces.
These findings suggest that distinct circuit dysfunctions may
contribute to different features of emotion dysregulation in bipolar
disorder.
Professor and senior author Dr. Amit Anand said, "This study provides
important information regarding brain areas that may be important in
controlling response to emotional material and the functional
abnormalities in these areas in mood disorders."
"It is interesting that subtly different circuits distinguish
symptomatic and non-symptomatic patients with bipolar disorder when they
are suppressing their happy and sad reactions," commented Dr. John
Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "These findings may have
implications for the refinement of circuit-based treatments for bipolar
disorder including neurostimulation and psychotherapy."
Bipolar disorder is a severe mood disorder characterized by
unpredictable and dramatic mood swings between the highs of mania and
lows of depression. These mood episodes occur among periods of 'normal
mood', termed euthymia.
1 Comments:
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