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Association between cortical thickness or surface area and divergent thinking in patients with bipolar disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2024

Pei-Chi Tu Open the ORCID record for Pei-Chi Tu [Opens in a new window] ,
Wan-Chen Chang ,
Yi-Hsuan Kuan ,
Mu-Hong Chen Open the ORCID record for Mu-Hong Chen [Opens in a new window]  and
Tung-Ping Su
Pei-Chi Tu*
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
Wan-Chen Chang
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
Yi-Hsuan Kuan
Affiliation:
Institute of Brain Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
Mu-Hong Chen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan Institute of Brain Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
Tung-Ping Su
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan Institute of Brain Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychiatry, Cheng-Hsin General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
*
Corresponding author: Pei-Chi Tu; Email: peichitu@gmail.com
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Abstract

Objective:

Divergent thinking is a critical creative cognitive process. Its neural mechanisms have been well-studied through structural and functional imaging in healthy individuals but are less explored in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Because of the traditional link between creativity and BD, this study investigated the structural correlates of divergent thinking in patients with BD through surface-based morphometry.

Methods:

Fifty-nine patients diagnosed with BD I or BD II (35.3 ± 8.5 years) and 56 age- and sex-matched controls (33.9 ± 7.4 years) were recruited. The participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging and an evaluation of divergent thinking by using the Chinese version of the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA). FreeSurfer 7.0 was used to generate thickness and surface area maps for each participant. Brainwise regression of the association between cortical thickness or surface area and ATTA performance was conducted using general linear models.

Results:

Divergent thinking performance did not differ significantly between the patients with BD and the healthy controls. In these patients, total ATTA score was negatively correlated with cortical thickness in the right middle frontal gyrus, right occipital, and left precuneus but positively correlated with the surface area of the right superior frontal gyrus. By contrast, total ATTA scores and cortical thickness or surface area were not significantly correlated among the controls.

Conclusion:

The findings indicate that divergent thinking involves cerebral structures for executive control, mental imagery, and visual processing in patients with BD, and the right prefrontal cortex might be the most crucial of these structures.

Keywords

Bipolar disorderdivergent thinkingcortical thicknessprefrontal cortexMRI
Type
Original Article
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , First View , pp. 1 - 8
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology

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