Exploring the Causality Between Mood Swings and Neurological Diseases: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Associations between genetically predicted mood swings and neurological diseases have been suggested. However, the causal relationships between these factors remain undefined.

We used a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to examine the causal relationship of genetically predicted mood swings with the risk of neurological diseases, including stroke, Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy (EP), and headache. The single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that exhibited genetic associations with mood swings were utilized as instrumental variables (IV) in the study. We performed MR analyses using the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method as the main approach. Sensitivity analyses were further performed using MR-Egger and MR-PRESSO to assess the robustness.

The MR analysis revealed significant causal of mood swings on stroke (OR = 1.300, 95% CI = 1.060-1.600; p = 0.012), headache (OR = 1.020, 95% CI = 1.000-1.030; p = 0.005), excluding AD (p = 0.548), EP (p = 0.449), MS (p = 0.494).

The findings of this research indicate a possible causal link existing between mood swings and stroke and headache. Additional investigative efforts are requisite for elucidating the underlying biological mechanisms that drive these observed associations.