Liu Haiyan, Zhao Ke, Shi Jiabo, Chen Yu, Yao Zhijian, Lu Qing
Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
School of Mental Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2018 Dec 20;9:704. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00704. eCollection 2018.
Bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are associated with different brain functional and structural abnormalities, but BD is hard to distinguish from MDD until the first manic or hypomanic episode. The aim of this study was to examine whether the topological properties of the brain structural network could be used to differentiate BD from MDD patients before their first manic/hypomanic episode. Diffusion tensor images were collected from 80 MDD patients and 53 healthy controls (HCs); 78 patients completed the follow-up study lasting 7 years. Among them, 12 patients were converted to BD and 64 patients remained MDD. Topological properties of the brain structural networks at baseline were compared among patients who converted to BD, patients who did not develop BD, and HCs. Patients who converted to BD displayed reduced nodal local efficiency in the left inferior frontal gyrus(IFG) compared with HCs and patients who did not convert to BD. There was no significant difference in the nodal global efficiency among the three groups. The findings suggest that the nodal local efficiency in the left IFG could serve as a potential biomarker to predict the conversion of MDD to BD before the occurrence of the first manic or hypomanic episode.
双相情感障碍（BD）和重度抑郁症（MDD）与不同的脑功能和结构异常相关，但在首次躁狂或轻躁狂发作之前，BD很难与MDD区分开来。本研究的目的是检验脑结构网络的拓扑特性是否可用于在首次躁狂/轻躁狂发作之前区分BD患者和MDD患者。从80例MDD患者和53名健康对照（HCs）中收集了扩散张量图像；78例患者完成了为期7年的随访研究。其中，12例患者转变为BD，64例患者仍为MDD。比较了转变为BD的患者、未发展为BD的患者和HCs在基线时脑结构网络的拓扑特性。与HCs和未转变为BD的患者相比，转变为BD的患者左侧额下回（IFG）的节点局部效率降低。三组之间的节点全局效率没有显著差异。研究结果表明，左侧IFG的节点局部效率可作为一种潜在的生物标志物，用于预测在首次躁狂或轻躁狂发作之前MDD向BD的转变。
