Department of Psychiatry, The University of Iowa, 195-207 Newton Road, Iowa City, IA, 52246, USA.
Department of Neurology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Cerebellum. 2023 Jun;22(3):370-378. doi: 10.1007/s12311-022-01408-1. Epub 2022 May 14.
Posterior fossa arachnoid cysts (PFACs) are rare congenital abnormalities observed in 0.3 to 1.7% of the population and are traditionally thought to be benign. While conducting a neuroimaging study investigating cerebellar structure in bipolar disorder, we observed a higher incidence of PFACs in bipolar patients (5 of 75; 6.6%) compared to the neuronormative control group (1 of 54; 1.8%). In this report, we detail the cases of the five patients with bipolar disorder who presented with PFACs. Additionally, we compare neuropsychiatric measures and cerebellar volumes of these patients to neuronormative controls and bipolar controls (those with bipolar disorder without neuroanatomical abnormalities). Our findings suggest that patients with bipolar disorder who also present with PFACs may have a milder symptom constellation relative to patients with bipolar disorder and no neuroanatomical abnormalities. Furthermore, our observations align with prior literature suggesting an association between PFACs and psychiatric symptoms that warrants further study. While acknowledging sample size limitations, our primary aim in the present work is to highlight a connection between PFACs and BD-associated symptoms and encourage further study of cerebellar abnormalities in psychiatry.
后颅窝蛛网膜囊肿（PFACs）是一种罕见的先天性异常，在人群中的发生率为 0.3%至 1.7%，传统上被认为是良性的。在进行一项关于双相情感障碍患者小脑结构的神经影像学研究时，我们发现双相情感障碍患者中 PFACs 的发生率较高（75 例中有 5 例，占 6.6%），而神经元正常对照组（54 例中有 1 例，占 1.8%）。在本报告中，我们详细介绍了 5 例患有双相情感障碍且出现 PFACs 的患者的病例。此外，我们将这些患者的神经精神病学测量和小脑体积与神经元正常对照组和双相情感障碍对照组（即没有神经解剖异常的双相情感障碍患者）进行了比较。我们的研究结果表明，同时患有 PFACs 和双相情感障碍的患者的症状组合可能相对较轻。此外，我们的观察结果与先前的文献一致，表明 PFACs 与精神症状之间存在关联，值得进一步研究。尽管我们承认样本量有限，但本研究的主要目的是强调 PFACs 与 BD 相关症状之间的联系，并鼓励进一步研究精神疾病中的小脑异常。
