A single MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan
may soon help hundreds of thousands of people with bipolar
disorder to get a faster, more accurate – and possibly life-saving
– diagnosis, a leading researcher reported at the Royal College of
Psychiatrists’ International Congress.
Professor Mary Phillips, professor of
psychiatry and director of the Clinical and Translational Affective
Neurosicence Program at the University of Pittsburgh, told the
Congress that missed and delayed diagnosis was a major problem with
bipolar disorder.
She said: “Only one in five sufferers are
correctly diagnosed at first presentation to a doctor and it can
take up to ten years before suffers receive a correct
diagnosis.” A major problem for clinicians is the difficulty
of differentiating between unipolar (normal) depression and bipolar
disorder. Professor Phillips explained: “The problem is that
sufferers [of bipolar disorder] frequently fail to tell their
doctors about hypomanic phases because they can be experienced as
quite pleasant or judged not to be abnormal at all.”
Yet research carried out at Pittsburgh has
shown that BPD may in the near future be more accurately diagnosed
with a combination of a Functional MRI, which scans the
brain’s ‘software’ or neural pathways, as well as a DTI
(Diffusion Tension Imaging) which scans the brain’s white
matter.
Professor Philips told the Congress that scans
of the brains of people who are suffering depression or bipolar
disorder show ‘functionally coupled’ activity in two regions
of the brain, the amygdala which processes emotions, and the
pre-frontal cortex, important for emotional
regulation.
Professor Phillips’ study involved MRI scans
comparing brain function in two groups of people, one group with
bipolar disorder and the other with depression. It revealed that
the two types of depression appear to be easily distinguished “by a
very different and distinct pattern of brain activity”.
She said: “If there’s a plan to do just one
MRI in the future to try to decide whether someone has bipolar
or depression , I’d suggest focussing the right pre-frontal
cortex. If there is any abnormality in functioning between the
right and pre-frontal cortex and right amygdala, the chances are
that the person has bipolar.”
Professor Phillips suggested that the scans
may also be used at some point to predict a future onset of bipolar
disorder in young people who are not yet affected by the
disease.
For further information, please
contact:
Liz Leicester
or Deborah Hart in the Communications
Department.
Telephone: 020 7235 2351 Extensions. 6298 or 6127
References:
International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Edinburgh, 21-24 June 2010.