Li Chunyang, Hong Liu, Zou Laiquan, Zhu Yiping, Ye Jianfu, Wu Fenlan, Chen Chao
Department of Psychiatry, Shunde Wu Zhongpei Hospital, Foshan, Guangdong, China.
Department of Psychology, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Mar 20;14:1080622. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1080622. eCollection 2023.
Most studies on olfactory function in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) have not distinguished between the different subtypes or between the acute phase (mania or depression) and euthymic state. In this study, we compared olfactory function among BD patients with different subtypes and episodes to explore the potential use of olfactory function as a biomarker for the early identification of BD.
The study sample consisted of 117 BD patients who were hospitalized between April 2019 and June 2019, and 47 healthy volunteers as controls. The BD patients were divided into a bipolar I disorder (BD I) ( = 86) and bipolar II disorder (BD II) group ( = 31) according to the different subtypes, and divided into depressive BD ( = 36), manic BD ( = 44), or euthymic BD ( = 37) groups according to the types of episodes they experienced. We assessed olfactory sensitivity (OS) and olfactory identification (OI) the Sniffin' Sticks test and used the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) and Young Manic Rating Scale (YMRS) to evaluate BD characteristics among all subjects.
Compared with controls, the participants with BD showed decreased OS and OI. We found statistically significant differences in OS and OI between the BD I group and controls, as well as differences in OS between the BD I and BD II group. Least-significant difference multiple comparisons revealed statistically significant differences in OS between the depressive BD group, manic BD group and controls and also between the manic BD and euthymic BD group. OI was positively correlated with the YMRS score in the BD I group and OS was negatively correlated with the HAMD score in the BD II group.
This may be the first study to compare olfactory function in patients with BD I vs. BD II pairwise comparisons. Our findings suggest that OS may have potential as a biomarker for distinguishing the different subtypes of BD and as a state-related biomarker for differentiating the acute phase from the euthymic state of BD. However, further prospective research is warranted.
大多数关于双相情感障碍（BD）患者嗅觉功能的研究并未区分不同亚型，也未区分急性期（躁狂或抑郁）和心境正常状态。在本研究中，我们比较了不同亚型和发作期的BD患者的嗅觉功能，以探索嗅觉功能作为BD早期识别生物标志物的潜在用途。
研究样本包括2019年4月至2019年6月期间住院的117例BD患者，以及47名健康志愿者作为对照。BD患者根据不同亚型分为双相I型障碍（BD I）组（n = 86）和双相II型障碍（BD II）组（n = 31），并根据所经历的发作类型分为抑郁BD组（n = 36）、躁狂BD组（n = 44）或心境正常BD组（n = 37）。我们通过嗅棒测试评估嗅觉敏感度（OS）和嗅觉识别能力（OI），并使用汉密尔顿抑郁量表（HAMD）和杨氏躁狂量表（YMRS）评估所有受试者的BD特征。
与对照组相比，BD患者的OS和OI降低。我们发现BD I组与对照组之间在OS和OI上存在统计学显著差异，以及BD I组和BD II组之间在OS上存在差异。最小显著差异多重比较显示，抑郁BD组、躁狂BD组与对照组之间以及躁狂BD组与心境正常BD组之间在OS上存在统计学显著差异。在BD I组中，OI与YMRS评分呈正相关，在BD II组中，OS与HAMD评分呈负相关。
这可能是第一项对BD I与BD II患者的嗅觉功能进行两两比较的研究。我们的研究结果表明，OS可能有潜力作为区分BD不同亚型的生物标志物，以及作为区分BD急性期与心境正常状态的状态相关生物标志物。然而，需要进一步的前瞻性研究。
