Department of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Restor Neurol Neurosci. 2014;32(1):51-62. doi: 10.3233/RNN-139007.
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe, chronic disease with a heritability of 60-80%. BD is frequently misdiagnosed due to phenomenological overlap with other psychopathologies, an important issue that calls for the identification of biological and psychological vulnerability and disease markers. Altered structural and functional connectivity, mainly between limbic and prefrontal brain areas, have been proposed to underlie emotional and motivational dysregulation in BD and might represent relevant vulnerability and disease markers. In the present laboratory review we discuss functional and structural neuroimaging findings on emotional and motivational dysregulation from our research group in BD patients and healthy individuals at risk to develop BD. As a main result of our studies, we observed altered orbitofrontal and limbic activity and reduced connectivity between dorsal prefrontal and limbic brain regions, as well as reduced integrity of fiber tracts connecting prefrontal and subcortical brain structures in BD patients and high-risk individuals. Our results provide novel insights into pathophysiological mechanisms of bipolar disorder. The current laboratory review provides a specific view of our group on altered brain connectivity and underlying psychological processes in bipolar disorder based on our own work, integrating relevant findings from others. Thereby we attempt to advance neuropsychobiological models of BD.
双相情感障碍（BD）是一种严重的慢性疾病，遗传率为 60-80%。由于与其他精神病理学的现象学重叠，BD 经常被误诊，这是一个重要的问题，需要确定生物和心理易感性和疾病标志物。已经提出改变的结构和功能连接，主要是在边缘和前额叶脑区之间，是BD 中情感和动机失调的基础，并且可能代表相关的易感性和疾病标志物。在本实验室综述中，我们讨论了我们研究小组在 BD 患者和有发展 BD 风险的健康个体中关于情绪和动机失调的功能和结构神经影像学研究结果。作为我们研究的主要结果，我们观察到 BD 患者和高风险个体的眶额和边缘活动改变，以及背侧前额叶和边缘脑区之间的连接减少，以及连接前额叶和皮质下脑结构的纤维束完整性降低。我们的结果为双相情感障碍的病理生理机制提供了新的见解。本实验室综述基于我们自己的工作，整合了其他人的相关发现，提供了我们小组对双相情感障碍中大脑连接改变和潜在心理过程的具体看法。因此，我们试图推进双相情感障碍的神经心理生物学模型。
