A new study, led by USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI), will explore structural alterations in the brains of people with bipolar disorder (BD), a chronic mental illness with one of the highest rates of attempted suicide — and for which no biological tools currently exist to guide diagnosis or treatment. The goal is to transform researchers’ understanding of the disease in the hopes of developing more effective treatments.

Christopher R.K. Ching, PhD, assistant professor of research neurology at the Stevens INI, part of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, will lead a global network of psychiatric researchers in collaboration with Matthew Kempton, PhD, of King’s College London. The NIH-funded project supports efforts by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium’s Bipolar Disorder Working Group (ENIGMA-BD), which Ching chairs. ENIGMA-BD has fostered successful global collaborations among more than 230 researchers since 2012, resulting in the most extensive studies of BD and the brain ever conducted.

“By combining existing brain imaging and clinical data samples from leading research groups around the world, we are hoping to break new ground in mapping the brain signatures of BD as well as how they compare to other conditions like major depressive disorder (MDD), which share similar risk factors, symptoms, and treatments,” says Ching.

The team will use a large-scale analysis approach called voxel-based morphometry (VBM), which allows scientists to map subtle structural alterations across the entire brain. Unlike other neuroimaging methods that tend to average features across larger predefined brain regions, this technique enables precise, fine-resolution mapping of the emotion and reward processing centers affected in BD and other regions like the cerebellum often overlooked in prior studies. For years, the cerebellum was primarily regarded as a region responsible for motor control; however, emerging research increasingly suggests that it also plays a crucial role in cognitive processes and may function abnormally in individuals with mental illness.

Kempton and his team have recently applied the same methodology in the most extensive imaging study of early-onset psychosis. “We found widespread reductions in gray but not white matter volume in those with early onset psychosis using the ENIGMA VBM tool, and we are excited to be collaborating with Dr. Ching and ENIGMA-BD to map brain abnormalities in bipolar disorder. Using this methodology will allow us to map the changes in brain structure in remarkable detail in such a large sample, “ notes Kempton.

Source: https://keck.usc.edu/news/a-new-global-study-aims-to-map-the-brain-signatures-of-bipolar-disorder-to-transform-understanding-of-the-disease/