Journal
JOURNAL OF AFFECTIVE DISORDERS
Volume 264, Issue -, Pages 519-526Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.085
Keywords
Bipolar disorder; Visuospatial working memory; Maintenance; Manipulation; Structural neuroimaging
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Funding
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute/Pfizer Canada Research Grant through the Pfizer Psychiatry Research Awards
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award
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Background: A domain of cognition that has been found to be impaired in bipolar disorder across mood states is working memory. Working memory can be separated into two components, maintenance and manipulation. Bipolar patients also demonstrate structural brain abnormalities in prefrontal and parietal regions, which are regions associated with working memory processes. Despite the understanding that working memory consists of multiple separable cognitive processes, no study to date has differentiated maintenance and manipulation, and associated them with underlying structural brain regions in bipolar disorder. Methods: Twenty-six bipolar patients and 24 controls completed a visuospatial working memory task and structural neuroimaging. Prefrontal and parietal gray matter volume, surface area, and cortical thickness were obtained using FreeSurfer. The relationship between working memory performance, structural integrity, symptoms, and functioning were investigated. Results: Bipolar patients were less accurate on the working memory task compared to controls, without a greater deficit in the manipulation condition. Controls had thicker prefrontal and parietal cortices than bipolar patients. In bipolar patients, thicker prefrontal cortices had a small association with greater accuracy on the maintenance condition, as well as greater depression. Limitations: This study could have benefitted from a larger sample size. Conclusions: Bipolar patients demonstrated both poorer accuracy on the visuospatial working memory task compared to controls and thinner cortices in areas associated with working memory, namely the prefrontal and parietal cortices. This demonstrates an underlying relationship between brain and behavior in bipolar disorder.
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