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www.futurity.org_med 2015 000036.txt

#High-res MRI links cerebellum to bipolar disorder A different type of MRI has given researchers an unprecedented look at previously unrecognized differences in the brains of people with bipolar disorder, a new study reports. Specifically, the findings reveal differences in the white matter of patientsbrains and in the cerebellum, an area of the brain not previously linked with the disorder. The cerebellar differences were not present in patients taking lithium, the most commonly used treatment for bipolar disorder. A NEW PICTURE his imaging technique appears to be sensitive to things that just have not been imaged effectively before says John Wemmie, professor of psychiatry at University of Iowa. o it really providing a new picture and new insight into the composition and function of the brain in bipolar disease. Despite being relatively commonipolar disorder affects about one percent of the populationcientists don have a good understanding of what causes bipolar disorder, which is characterized by sudden mood shifts from normal to depressed or to an abnormally elevated or anicmood state. Researchers examined 15 patients with bipolar disorder and 25 control subjects matched for age and gender. The bipolar patients were all in a normal (euthymic) mood state during the study. Participantsbrains were imaged using an MRI approach known as quantitative high-resolution T1 rho mapping which is sensitive to certain byproducts of cell metabolism, including levels of glucose and acidity in the brain. ELEVATED MRI SIGNAL Compared to the brains of people without bipolar disorder, the MRI signal was elevated in the cerebral white matter and the cerebellar region of patients affected by bipolar disorder. The elevated signal may be due to either a reduction in ph or a reduction in glucose concentrationoth factors influenced by cell metabolism. Previous research has suggested that abnormal cell metabolism may play a role in bipolar disorder. However, investigating metabolic abnormalities in the brain has been hindered by lack of a good imaging tools. Available methods are slow low-resolution, and require researchers to identify the region of interest at the beginning of the study. In contrast, the new imaging approach can rapidly acquire a high-resolution image of the whole brain. The study is the first time this MRI technique has been used to investigate a psychiatric disease. One reason researchers didn know that the cerebellum might be important in bipolar disorder, is because no one chose to look there, says Casey Johnson, postdoctoral researcher and first author on the study that is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. ur study was essentially exploratory. We didn know what we would find. The majority of bipolar disorder research has found differences in the frontal region of the brain. We found focal differences in the cerebellum, which is a region that hasn really been highlighted in the bipolar literature before.""By the time patients show symptoms and go to a doctor, aggregation already has a stronghold in their brains, "says Lisa Lapidus, who uses lasers to study the speed of protein reconfiguration before aggregation.""In the lab, however, we can see the first steps, at the very place where the drugs could be the most effective. This could be a strong model for fighting Parkinson's and other diseases that involve neurotoxic aggregation. MRI probe detects Alzheimer's at earliest stage Spurred on by the finding, the researchers conducted an extensive search of the scientific literature on bipolar disorder and began to find pieces of evidence that suggested that the cerebellum may function abnormally in bipolar disorder and that lithium might potentially target the cerebellum and alter glucose levels in this brain region. ur paper, with this new technique, starts to bring all these pieces of evidence together for the first time, Johnson says. The researchers hope that the new insights provided by the T1 rho imaging might help refine understanding of the abnormalities that underlie bipolar disease and lead to better ways to diagnose and treat this problem. While lithium can be an effective mood stabilizer for people with bipolar disorder, it causes numerous unpleasant side effects for patients. f lithium effect on the cerebellum is the key to its effectiveness as a mood stabilizer, then a more targeted treatment that causes the same change in the cerebellum without affecting other systems might be a better treatment for patients with bipolar disorder, Wemmie says. A philanthropic gift from University of Iowa alumnus Roger Koch, the National institutes of health, the Department of veterans affairs, and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression provided funding for the study. Source: University of Iow g

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