Intrinsic Amygdala Functional Connectivity in Youth With Bipolar I Disorder

Abstract

Objective Bipolar disorder (BD) commonly begins during adolescence and may continue into adulthood. Studies in adults with BD suggest that disruptions in amygdalar neural circuitry explain the pathophysiology underlying the disorder. Importantly, however, amygdala subregion networks have not yet been examined in youth close to mania onset. The goal of this study was to compare resting state functional connectivity patterns in amygdala subregions in youth with bipolar-I (BP-1) disorder with patterns in healthy controls. Method Centromedial, laterobasal, and superficial amygdala subdivisions were assessed during rest and examined in relation to clinical measures of mania in youth (14 to 20 years old) with BP-I who experienced only a single episode of mania (n=20, “BD”) and age-matched healthy comparison youth without any personal or family history of DSM-IV Axis I disorders (n=23, “HC”). Results Relative to HC youth, youth with BD exhibited decreased connectivity between the laterobasal subdivision of the amygdala and the hippocampus and precentral gyrus, and increased connectivity between the laterobasal subdivision and the precuneus. Connectivity between the right laterobasal amygdala and right hippocampus was positively correlated with levels of anxiety in BD but not in HC youth, and connectivity between the right laterobasal amygdala and right precuneus was negatively correlated with insight about bipolar illness. Conclusion Youth with BD have abnormal amygdala resting state network connections to regions that are critical for emotional processing and self-awareness. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether these aberrant patterns in youth with BD can be altered with intervention and influence the course of disorder.

Gray matter differences between affective and non-affective first episode psychosis: A review of Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies

“…), regions consistently found to be impaired in BD (Brambilla et al, 2008;Green et al, 2007;Houenou et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2015).…”

“…With regard to subcortical regions, two studies reported greater GM volumes (Velakoulis et al, 2006;Watson et al, 2012) and deformed shape in amygdala in A-FEP (Qiu et al, 2013) in comparison to NA-FEP (Velakoulis et al, 2006) or healthy control (Watson et al, 2012). Overall, these evidence are not surprising especially because amygdala enlargement has been implicated in the pathophysiology of BD (Brambilla et al, 2003;Strakowski et al, 1999), even at an early stage of the illness (Singh et al, 2015). Furthermore, amygdala is part of emotional processing network together with hippocampus, ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, striatum, and portions of the anterior cingulate cortex (Phillips and Swartz,…”

Goal Directed Worry Rules Are Associated with Distinct Patterns of Amygdala Functional Connectivity and Vagal Modulation during Perseverative Cognition

“…Aberrant FC between these areas is implicated in functional impairments in socioemotional learning, anxiety, and self-referential insight (e.g., Singh et al, 2015). For example, exaggerated negative connectivity with lateral occipital cortex occurs in patients with social anxiety disorder (Pannekoek et al, 2013).…”

Dissociable relations between amygdala subregional networks and psychopathy trait dimensions in conduct‐disordered juvenile offenders

“…That is, trait‐specific variance in amygdalar iFC over and above what can be explained by the other traits. Following earlier work on amygdala subregional iFC patterns [Aghajani et al, 2016; Brown et al, 2014; Roy et al, 2009; Singh et al, 2015], the resulting statistical maps were all corrected for multiple comparisons using cluster‐based correction with initial cluster forming threshold of Z  > 2.3 and cluster extent threshold of P < 0.05, which tends to adequately balance the propagation of false positives and false negatives [Bennett et al, 2009; Jenkinson et al, 2012; Lieberman and Cunningham, 2009]. …”