Structural deficits may explain mood-independent cognitive difficulties in bipolar disorder
Dr. Cameron Carter, Editor of Biological Psychiatry : Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging , noted the study is "an elegant synthesis of task fMRI and structural MRI" that shows a unique relationship between structure and function in bipolar disorder. In the first study to assess the relationship between structural and functional MRI data in bipolar disorder, Dr. Shantanu Joshi and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles focused on brain regions that play a role in mood dysregulation in the disorder. They examined the brains of 45 patients with bipolar disorder who were between mood episodes and 45 controls. While performing a task intended to activate specific regions of the brain, patients had reduced activation, when compared to the control group, in two brain regions critical for inhibitory control: the inferior frontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. The patients also had reduced activation in the superior frontal gyrus, a region impor...