Marlos Vasconcelos Rocha, Fabiana Nery-Fernandes
Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program (CETHA). Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brazil.
Leonardo Baldaçara
Laboratório Interdisciplinar de Neurociências Clínicas (LiNC), Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Andrea Parolin Jackowski
Image Memorial, Medicina Diagnóstica, Salvador, BA, Brazil.
Lucas De Castro Quarantini
Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
Giovanna Ladeia-Rocha, César De Araujo Neto
Image Memorial, Medicina Diagnóstica, Salvador, BA, Brazil.
Irismar Reis De Oliveira, André Caribé, Ângela Miranda-Scippa
Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program (CETHA). Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brazil.
Abstract:
Background: Patients with Bipolar Disorder (BD) have the highest lifetime risk for suicidal behavior (SB) compared to other psychiatric disorders. Neuroimaging research provides evidence of some structural and functional abnormalities in the brain of BD suicide attempters (SA), but interpretation of these findings may represent a number of features. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the volume of the prefrontal cortex in euthymic BD type I outpatients, with and without history of SA. Methods: 36 euthymic BD I outpatients (18 with and 18 without suicide attempt history) were underwent structural MRI and total and regional gray matter volumes were assessed and compared with 22 healthy controls (HC). Results: We did not found any differences in all areas between suicidal and non-suicidal BD I patients and BD patients as a group compared to HC as well. Discussion: our findings suggest that can be a different subgroups of patients in relation to prefrontal cortex volumes according to some clinical and socio-demographic caractheristics, such as number of previous episodes and continuous use of medical psychotropic drugs that may induce neuroplasticity phenomena, which restore cerebral volume and possibly can lead to long-term euthymia state.
Keywords:suicidal behavior; suicide attempts; bipolar disorder; neuroplasticity; prefrontal cortex, neuroimaging