Brain atrophy on a young male with bipolar disease

Abstract

Bipolar disorder, sometimes referred to as manic depressive disorder is characterized by dramatic shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels that affects a person's ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. More than two-thirds of people with bipolar disorder have at least one close relative with the illness or with unipolar major depression, indicating that the disease has a heritable component (1). There have been numerous studies that have revealed the presence of cerebral atrophy especially in the prefrontal cortex in elderly patients with bipolar affective disorder, associated with loss of grey matter(2), but we will present the case of a 28 year-old male, known with bipolar disease, admitted for a mixed episode, with the predominance of depressive episodes, exacerbated in a work-related stress, on which we discovered a cerebral atrophy on CT examination. By introducing the neuroleptics and mood stabilizer, we were able to notice improvement on symptoms, as well as a regain on his social and professional functioning.