Psychosis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Psychosis, including details on clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder.

Hippocampal and ventricular volumes in psychotic and nonpsychotic bipolar patients compared with schizophrenia patients and community control subjects: a pilot study.

Strasser HC, Lilyestrom J, Ashby ER, Honeycutt NA, Schretlen DJ, Pulver AE, Hopkins RO, Depaulo JR, Potash JB, Schweizer B, Yates KO, Kurian E, Barta PE, Pearlson GD

Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Catonsville, Maryland.

BACKGROUND: Previous reports of ventricular and hippocampal volumes in patients with bipolar disorder (BP) have been inconsistent in their findings. One possibility is that volumetric abnormalities are determined by disease subtype. Prior evidence suggests that psychotic (PBP) and nonpsychotic (NPBP) forms of BP are two subtypes that might differ in pathophysiology. METHODS: We investigated ventricular and hippocampal volumes in 38 adults with clearly defined PBP (n = 23) and NPBP subtypes, compared with 33 persons with schizophrenia (SZ) and 44 healthy community control subjects (HC). Ventricular and hippocampal volumes were reliably measured on high-resolution anatomic magnetic resonance imaging scans. We used a multivariate analysis of covariance to compare volumes across groups, covarying for total brain volume. Potential effects of BP illness features were explored, contrasting PBP and NPBP. RESULTS: For ventricular but not hippocampal regions, we found significant volume difference in PBP but not NPBP compared with HC (p < .005). We also observed nonsignificantly smaller left hippocampal volumes in PBP versus HC. Schizophrenic subjects had significantly larger ventricular and smaller left hippocampal volumes than HC. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that PBP but not NPBP is associated with increased ventricle volumes and a trend toward smaller left hippocampal volumes, as observed in SZ.

Published 22 March 2005 in Biol Psychiatry, 57(6): 633-9.
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