Diffusion tensor imaging tractography study in bipolar disorder patients compared to first-degree relatives and...

We aimed to compare white matter structural changes in specific tracts by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) I, non-ill first-degree relatives (FDR) of the patients, and healthy controls (HC).

In a cross-sectional study, we studied right-handed subjects consisting of 16 euthymic BD I patients, 15 FDR, and 15 HC. The anterior thalamic radiation, uncinate fasciculus, corpus callosum, and cingulum bundle were reconstructed by DTI tractography. Mean fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were compared for group differences followed by post-hoc analysis.

The three groups did not differ in terms of sociodemographic variables. There were significant group differences in the FA values among the BD I patients, their FDR, and the HC for the corpus callosum, the dorsal part of the right cingulum bundle, the hippocampal part of the cingulum bundle bilaterally, and the uncinate fasciculus (P < 0.001). The FA values in the patients were significantly lower than in controls, and FDR also showed similar differences; however, they were smaller than those in patients. No significant difference was found between the groups for FA values of the dorsal part of the left cingulum bundle and anterior thalamic radiation. Significant differences were present for ADC values among the groups for the corpus callosum, the dorsal and hippocampal parts of the cingulum, anterior thalamic radiation, and uncinate fasciculus bilaterally (P < 0.01). The FA and ADC values did not correlate significantly with age or any clinical variables.

These findings suggest that BD patients and their FDR show alterations in microstructural integrity of white matter tracts, compared to the healthy population.