Reduced Brain Electric Activity and Functional Connectivity in Bipolar Euthymia: An sLORETA Source Localization Study.
Author: Painold A1, Faber PL2, Reininghaus EZ1, Mörkl S1, Holl AK1, Achermann P2, Saletu B3, Saletu-Zyhlarz G3, Anderer P3, Dalkner N1, Birner A1, Bengesser S1, Kapfhammer HP1, Milz P2
Affiliation:
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
2Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.
3Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Conference/Journal: Clin EEG Neurosci.
Date published: 2019 Dec 17
Other:
Volume ID: 1550059419893472 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1177/1550059419893472. [Epub ahead of print] , Word Count: 263
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic illness with a relapsing and remitting time course. Relapses are manic or depressive in nature and intermitted by euthymic states. During euthymic states, patients lack the criteria for a manic or depressive diagnosis, but still suffer from impaired cognitive functioning as indicated by difficulties in executive and language-related processing. The present study investigated whether these deficits are reflected by altered intracortical activity in or functional connectivity between brain regions involved in these processes such as the prefrontal and the temporal cortices. Vigilance-controlled resting state EEG of 13 euthymic BD patients and 13 healthy age- and sex-matched controls was analyzed. Head-surface EEG was recomputed into intracortical current density values in 8 frequency bands using standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography. Intracortical current densities were averaged in 19 evenly distributed regions of interest (ROIs). Lagged coherences were computed between each pair of ROIs. Source activity and coherence measures between patients and controls were compared (paired t tests). Reductions in temporal cortex activity and in large-scale functional connectivity in patients compared to controls were observed. Activity reductions affected all 8 EEG frequency bands. Functional connectivity reductions affected the delta, theta, alpha-2, beta-2, and gamma band and involved but were not limited to prefrontal and temporal ROIs. The findings show reduced activation of the temporal cortex and reduced coordination between many brain regions in BD euthymia. These activation and connectivity changes may disturb the continuous frontotemporal information flow required for executive and language-related processing, which is impaired in euthymic BD patients.
KEYWORDS: bipolar disorder; electroencephalography (EEG); euthymia; intracortical lagged coherence; standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA)
PMID: 31845595 DOI: 10.1177/1550059419893472
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