Unipolar and Bipolar Depression Manifest Different Brain Abnormalities:a voxel-based morphometry study

Aimin Hu ,Zhening Liu ,Peng Wang ,Xue Zhang ,Zhihui He

doi:10.20900/jpbs.20160009

Aimin Hu , Zhening Liu + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.20900/jpbs.20160009

Copy DOI

Abstract

Background:Patients with bipolar depression is often misdiagnosed to be as unipolar depression due to the phenotype similarity of these two diseases. We hypothesize that patients with these two diseases may demonstrate difference in terms of gray matter volume. Methods:Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired from 64 subjects, including 17 unipolar depression patients, 19 bipolar depression patients and 28 healthy controls. Image preprocess were conducted using Voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Then the gray matter volume changes were compared among different groups. Results: Compared to healthy controls, both Unipolar and bipolar patients demonstrated significantly decreased gray matter volume in the right anterior cerebellum lobe. Moreover, we observed significant right superior temporal gyrus volume decrease in unipolar patients compared to both healthy controls and bipolar subjects. Conclusion: Our results indicated that volume changes in anterior cerebellum lobe could be used for the diagnosis of both unipolar and bipolar depressions. Additionally, the right superior temporal gyrus volume variations may differ in unipolar and bipolar patients and thereby could be used as a marker for differentiating these two diseases

Highlights

Depressed mood, lack of interest and loss of pleasure are the core symptoms in the patients with unipolar depression and bipolar depression
The bipolar and unipolar depression disorders showed the significant decrease of gray matter volumes of right lobus anterior cerebelli through the further comparison with the healthy control, and the unipolar depression disorder showed the significant decrease of gray matter volumes of right superior temporal gyrus through the comparison with other two groups of subjects (Table 3, see attached figures)
The results of this study showed that the gray matter volume of right superior temporal gyrus of subjects with unipolar depression significantly decreased compared to the healthy control, and there was no significant difference for the subjects with bipolar depression

Summary

Methods

Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired from 64 subjects, including 17 unipolar depression patients, 19 bipolar depression patients and 28 healthy controls. The gray matter volume changes were compared among different groups

Results

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Clinical Assessment and MRI Data Acquisition

RESULTS

DISCUSSION