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Differing amygdala responses to facial expressions in children and adults with bipolar disorder.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:Child and adult bipolar patients show both behavioral deficits in face emotion processing and abnormal amygdala activation. However, amygdala function in pediatric relative to adult bipolar patients has not been compared directly. The authors used functional MRI to compare amygdala activity during a face processing task in children and adults with bipolar disorder and in healthy comparison subjects. METHOD:Amygdala responses to emotional facial expressions were examined in pediatric (N=18) and adult (N=17) bipolar patients and in healthy child (N=15) and adult (N=22) volunteers. Participants performed a gender identification task while viewing fearful, angry, and neutral faces. RESULTS:In response to fearful faces, bipolar patients across age groups exhibited right amygdala hyperactivity relative to healthy volunteers. However, when responses to all facial expressions were combined, pediatric patients exhibited greater right amygdala activation than bipolar adults and healthy children. CONCLUSIONS:Amygdala hyperactivity in response to fearful faces is present in both youths and adults with bipolar disorder. However, compared with bipolar adults and healthy child volunteers, pediatric bipolar patients showed amygdala hyperactivity in response to a broad array of emotional faces. Thus, abnormal amygdala activation during face processing appears to be more pervasive in children than in adults with bipolar disorder. Longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms of this developmental difference, thus facilitating developmentally sensitive diagnosis and treatment.

SUBMITTER: Kim P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3383787 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Differing amygdala responses to facial expressions in children and adults with bipolar disorder.

Kim Pilyoung P Thomas Laura A LA Rosen Brooke H BH Moscicki Alexander M AM Brotman Melissa A MA Zarate Carlos A CA Blair R James R RJ Pine Daniel S DS Leibenluft Ellen E

The American journal of psychiatry 20120601 6

<h4>Objective</h4>Child and adult bipolar patients show both behavioral deficits in face emotion processing and abnormal amygdala activation. However, amygdala function in pediatric relative to adult bipolar patients has not been compared directly. The authors used functional MRI to compare amygdala activity during a face processing task in children and adults with bipolar disorder and in healthy comparison subjects.<h4>Method</h4>Amygdala responses to emotional facial expressions were examined ...[more]

PMID: 22535257

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Project description:This study aimed to identify neuroimaging measures associated with risk for, or protection against, bipolar disorder by comparing youth offspring of parents with bipolar disorder versus youth offspring of non-bipolar parents versus offspring of healthy parents in (i) the magnitude of activation within emotional face processing circuitry; and (ii) functional connectivity between this circuitry and frontal emotion regulation regions. The study was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. Participants included 29 offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (mean age = 13.8 years; 14 females), 29 offspring of non-bipolar parents (mean age = 13.8 years; 12 females) and 23 healthy controls (mean age = 13.7 years; 11 females). Participants were scanned during implicit processing of emerging happy, sad, fearful and angry faces and shapes. The activation analyses revealed greater right amygdala activation to emotional faces versus shapes in offspring of parents with bipolar disorder and offspring of non-bipolar parents than healthy controls. Given that abnormally increased amygdala activation during emotion processing characterized offspring of both patient groups, and that abnormally increased amygdala activation has often been reported in individuals with already developed bipolar disorder and those with major depressive disorder, these neuroimaging findings may represent markers of increased risk for affective disorders in general. The analysis of psychophysiological interaction revealed that offspring of parents with bipolar disorder showed significantly more negative right amygdala-anterior cingulate cortex functional connectivity to emotional faces versus shapes, but significantly more positive right amygdala-left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex functional connectivity to happy faces (all P-values corrected for multiple tests) than offspring of non-bipolar parents and healthy controls. Taken together with findings of increased amygdala-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex functional connectivity, and decreased amygdala-anterior cingulate cortex functional connectivity previously shown in individuals with bipolar disorder, these connectivity patterns in offspring of parents with bipolar disorder may be risk markers for, rather than markers conferring protection against, bipolar disorder in youth. The patterns of activation and functional connectivity remained unchanged after removing medicated participants and those with current psychopathology from analyses. This is the first study to demonstrate that abnormal functional connectivity patterns within face emotion processing circuitry distinguish offspring of parents with bipolar disorder from those of non-bipolar parents and healthy controls.

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Differing amygdala responses to facial expressions in children and adults with bipolar disorder.

Publications

Differing amygdala responses to facial expressions in children and adults with bipolar disorder.

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