Total gray matter volume is reduced in individuals with bipolar disorder currently treated with atypical antipsychotics.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Recent evidence indicates that the intake of atypical antipsychotics (AAP) is associated with gray matter abnormalities in patients with psychiatric disorders. We explored if patients with bipolar disorder (BD) who are medicated with AAP exhibit total gray matter volume (TGV) reduction compared to BD individuals not medicated with AAP and healthy controls (HC).

METHODS

In a cross-sectional design, 124 individuals with BD and 86 HC underwent 3T-MRI of the brain and clinical assessment as part of our BIPFAT-study. The TGV was estimated using Freesurfer. We used univariate covariance analysis (ANCOVA) to test for normalized TGV differences and controlled for covariates.

RESULTS

ANCOVA results indicated that 75 BD individuals taking AAP had significantly reduced normalized TGV as compared to 49 BD not taking AAP (F = 9.995, p = .002., Eta = 0.084) and 86 HC (F = 7.577, p = .007, Eta = 0.046).

LIMITATIONS

Our cross-sectional results are not suited to draw conclusions about causality. We have no clear information on treatment time and baseline volumes before drug treatment in the studied subjects. We cannot exclude that patients received different psychopharmacologic medications prior to the study point. We did not included dosages into the calculation. Many BD individuals received combinations of psychopharmacotherapy across drug classes. We did not have records displaying quantitative alcohol consumption and drug abuse in our sample.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data provide further evidence for the impact of AAP on brain structure in BD. Longitudinal studies are needed to investigate the causal directions of the proposed relationships.