RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 White matter microstructural properties in bipolar disorder and its relationship to the spatial distribution of lithium in the brain
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 346528
DO 10.1101/346528
A1 Necus, Joe
A1 Sinha, Nishant
A1 Smith, Fiona Elizabeth
A1 Thelwall, Peter Edward
A1 Flowers, Carly Jay
A1 Taylor, Peter Neal
A1 Blamire, Andrew Matthew
A1 Cousins, David Andrew
A1 Wang, Yujiang
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/13/346528.abstract
AB Background Lithium treatment is associated with an increase in magnetic resonance imaging derived measures of white matter integrity, but the relationship between the spatial distribution of brain lithium and white matter integrity is unknown.Methods Euthymic patients with bipolar disorder receiving lithium treatment (n=12) and those on other medications but naïve to lithium (n=17) underwent diffusion imaging alongside matched healthy controls (n=16). Generalised fractional anisotropy (gFA) within white matter was compared between groups using a standard space white matter atlas. Lithium-treated patients also underwent novel multinuclear 3D lithium magnetic resonance imaging (7Li-MRI) to determine relative lithium concentration across the brain. The relationship between 7Li-MRI signal intensity and gFA was investigated at the resolution of the 7Li-MRI sequence in native space.Results The lithium-treated bipolar disorder and healthy control groups had higher mean gFA in white matter than the bipolar disorder group treated with other medications but naïve to lithium (t = 2.5, p < 0.05; t = 2.7, p < 0.03, respectively). No differences in gFA were found between patients taking lithium and healthy controls (t = 0.02, p = 1). These effects were seen consistently across most regions in the white matter atlas. In the lithium-treated group, a significant effect of the 7Li-MRI signal in predicting the gFA (p < 0.01) was identified in voxels containing over 50% white matter.Conclusions Lithium treatment of bipolar disorder is associated with higher gFA throughout brain white matter, and the spatial distribution of lithium is also positively associated with white matter gFA.