Department of Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
J Affect Disord. 2020 Jun 15;271:74-80. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.03.087. Epub 2020 Apr 18.
Numerous studies have suggested that structural changes in the cerebellum are implicated in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD). We aimed to investigate differences in the volume and cortical thickness of the cerebellar subregions between patients with BD and healthy controls (HCs).
Ninety patients with BD and one hundred sixty-six HCs participated in this study and underwent T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging. We analyzed the volume and cortical thickness of each cerebellar hemisphere divided into 12 subregions using T1-weighted images of participants. One-way analysis of covariance was used to evaluate differences between the groups, with age, sex, medication, and total intracranial cavity volume used as covariates.
The BD group had significantly increased cortical thickness of the cerebellum in all cerebellar subregions compared to the HC group. The cortical thicknesses of the whole cerebellum and each hemisphere were also significantly thicker in the BD group than in the HC group. The volume of the left lobule IX was significantly lower in patients with BD than in HCs, whereas no significant differences in the volumes were observed in the other subregions.
Our cross-sectional design cannot provide a causal relationship between the increased cortical thickness of the cerebellum and the risk of BD.
We observed widespread and significant cortical thickening in all the cerebellar subregions. Our results provide evidence for the involvement of the cerebellum in BD. Further studies are required to integrate neurobiological evidence and structural brain imaging to elucidate the pathophysiology of BD.
大量研究表明，小脑的结构变化与双相障碍（BD）的病理生理学有关。我们旨在研究 BD 患者与健康对照组（HCs）之间小脑各亚区体积和皮质厚度的差异。
本研究纳入了 90 名 BD 患者和 166 名 HCs，并对他们进行了 T1 加权结构磁共振成像检查。我们使用参与者的 T1 加权图像分析了每个小脑半球分为 12 个亚区的体积和皮质厚度。采用单因素协方差分析评估组间差异，以年龄、性别、药物和总颅内腔体积为协变量。
与 HCs 相比，BD 组所有小脑亚区的皮质厚度均显著增加。与 HCs 相比，BD 组的整个小脑和每个半球的皮质厚度也明显更厚。BD 患者的左侧 IX 小叶体积明显小于 HCs，而其他亚区的体积无显著差异。
我们的横断面设计不能提供小脑皮质厚度增加与 BD 风险之间的因果关系。
我们观察到所有小脑亚区均存在广泛且显著的皮质增厚。我们的研究结果为小脑参与 BD 提供了证据。需要进一步的研究来整合神经生物学证据和结构脑成像，以阐明 BD 的病理生理学。
