Bjertrup Anne Juul, Andreu Helena, Macoveanu Julian, Sankar Anjali, Moszkowicz Mala, Nielsen René Ernst, Pagsberg Anne Katrine, Vieta Eduard, Kessing Lars Vedel, Miskowiak Kamilla Woznica
Neurocognition and Emotion Across Disorders of the Brain Centre (NEAD), Psychiatric Centre Copenhagen, Frederiksberg Hospital, Hovedvejen 17, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Bipolar and Depressive Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Barcelona, IDIBAPS, CIBERSAM, c. Villarroel, 170, 08036 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Psychiatry Res. 2025 Sep;351:116610. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116610. Epub 2025 Jun 24.
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mood disorder that often involves cognitive impairments, functional disability and reduced quality of life. Additionally, children of individuals with BD face an increased risk of developing mental illness.
This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to assess neural responses to fearful versus happy facial expressions in BD mothers compared to healthy mothers and to explore associations between neural activation and mother infant-interactions and infant development.
Twenty-six mothers with BD in remission and 35 healthy mothers underwent fMRI during which they viewed images displaying either fearful or happy faces. All participants completed the facial expression recognition task outside the scanner where they were asked to identify the emotions displayed. Mother infant-interactions and infant development were also assessed.
Mothers with BD displayed reduced left frontal pole response to fearful versus happy faces compared to healthy mothers (p = 0.002) in whole-brain analyses. Lower activation of the left frontal pole was associated with lower dyadic reciprocity in mother-infant interaction (p=0.03). There were no differences in neural response between groups in other emotion processing regions or in facial expression recognition accuracy outside the scanner.
The selective lower frontal pole response to fearful faces in mothers with BD may contribute to poorer mother-infant interactions. The absence of broader differences in neural activity or facial expression recognition accuracy might signal motherhood-related attenuation of emotional-cognitive difficulties in BD.
双相情感障碍（BD）是一种严重的情绪障碍，常伴有认知障碍、功能残疾和生活质量下降。此外，双相情感障碍患者的子女患精神疾病的风险增加。
本功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究旨在评估双相情感障碍母亲与健康母亲相比，对恐惧和快乐面部表情的神经反应，并探讨神经激活与母婴互动及婴儿发育之间的关联。
26名缓解期双相情感障碍母亲和35名健康母亲接受了功能磁共振成像检查，期间她们观看显示恐惧或快乐面孔的图像。所有参与者在扫描仪外完成面部表情识别任务，被要求识别所显示的情绪。还评估了母婴互动和婴儿发育情况。
在全脑分析中，与健康母亲相比，双相情感障碍母亲对恐惧面孔与快乐面孔的左额极反应降低（p = 0.002）。左额极激活程度较低与母婴互动中较低的二元互动性相关（p = 0.03）。在扫描仪外的其他情绪处理区域，两组之间的神经反应或面部表情识别准确性没有差异。
双相情感障碍母亲对恐惧面孔的选择性较低的额极反应可能导致较差的母婴互动。神经活动或面部表情识别准确性方面缺乏更广泛的差异，可能表明双相情感障碍中与母亲身份相关的情绪认知困难有所减轻。
