Bipolar Disorder Changes Some Brain Development in Adolescents

the Psychiatry Advisor take:

Areas of the brain that are involved in the regulation of emotions develop differently in adolescents that are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, according to a new study from the Yale School of Medicine.

Hilary Blumberg, MD, a professor of psychiatry and diagnostic radiology, who also works in the Yale Child Study Center, conducted magnetic resonance imaging over a two-year period of the brain’s prefrontal cortex and insula of 37 adolescents with bipolar and 35 without the illness.

In those areas, the adolescents who had bipolar lost more than anticipated amounts of gray matter, or neurons, and also had no increase in white matter connections, the researchers reported in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

White matter connections are critical for normal brain development. And although all adolescents lose some gray matter as they develop, those with bipolar disorder lost far more. All in all, the changes observed seem to indicate that brain circuits that regulate emotions develop differently in young people who are bipolar.

Bipolar disorder often first appears in adolescence and is characterized by severe shifts in mood and activity levels. Those with the disorder also have a higher risk of suicide and substance abuse.

“In adolescence, the brain is very plastic so the hope is that one day we can develop interventions to prevent the development of bipolar disorder,” Blumberg said in a statement.