July 21, 2007
Manic mood swings can destroy grey matter
From Nature:
Grey matter in the brains of people with bipolar disorder is destroyed with each manic or depressive episode. This was the finding of an MRI study of 21 patients with bipolar disorder, a mental illness marked by successive episodes of mania followed by deep depression. The patients' brains were scanned at either end of a four-year period, during which time each patient had at least one episode and some as many as six. In all cases, the amount of grey matter in the temporal lobe and the cerebellum decreased compared to the grey matter in control subjects. These areas of the brain are associated with memory and coordination.
Patients that had suffered more episodes over the four years had the most marked difference in the amount of grey matter that had disappeared.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 07:31 AM | Permalink
Comments
It's probably the meds.
Posted by: Thomas | Jul 21, 2007 11:43:31 PM
This was interesting, Azra!
I felt that to be more compelling the article should have referred to findings of cognitive deficits in people with bipolar disorder in late life. I did discover one article in "The American Journal of Psychiatry" that suggests these deficits are indeed more prevalent among bipolar disorder sufferers than among the general population. Here's a link to a pdf summary of that article --
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/161/4/736.pdf
Thomas, all but one participant in the study were on meds.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 22, 2007 12:15:08 AM
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