Section of Neurobiology of Psychosis, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, London
Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London
Section of Neurobiology of Psychosis, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, UK
Correspondence: Dr Sophia Frangou, Section of Neurobiology of Psychosis, Institute of Psychiatry, PO66, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK. Email: s.frangou{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk
The study was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline.
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Bipolar disorder is associated with dysfunction in prefrontal and limbic areas implicated in emotional processing.
Aims
To explore whether lamotrigine monotherapy may exert its action by improving the function of the neural network involved in emotional processing.
Method
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine changes in brain activation during a sad facial affect recognition task in 12 stable patients with bipolar disorder when medication-free compared with healthy controls and after 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy.
Results
At baseline, compared with controls, patients with bipolar disorder showed overactivity in temporal regions and underactivity in the dorsal medial and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and the dorsal cingulate gyrus. Following lamotrigine monotherapy, patients demonstrated reduced temporal and increased prefrontal activation.
Conclusions
This preliminary evidence suggests that lamotrigine may enhance the function of the neural circuitry involved in affect recognition.
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Exclusion criteria were:
Patients were screened to confirm their suitability. Diagnosis was established using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–IV Axis I Disorders.14 Consenting patients were withdrawn from their existing medication over a 10-day period. They were then titrated over a 12-week period to a target dose of 200 mg/day lamotrigine (minimum dose 100 mg/day). During the study only hypnotic medication was allowed as required but not in the 48 h preceding functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collection. Throughout the study patients were assessed on a weekly basis. Withdrawal criteria included:
Controls
Patients were individually matched on gender and age (within a year) to
healthy control participants recruited by advertisement in the local press.
Healthy volunteers had no personal history of psychiatric, neurological or
medical illness, or treatment with psychotropic medications and no family
history of psychiatric disorders in their first-degree relatives.
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Psychiatry and written consent was obtained from all participants.
Imaging paradigm and study design
Participants took part in a 5-minute experiment employing event-related
fMRI, and were presented with ten different facial identities (six female,
four male)
(http://www.paulekman.com)
depicting 150% intensity of sadness. We used 150% intensity in order to ensure
optimal performance in patients and to avoid possible confounding effects of
ambiguity with regards to facial emotion recognition. In addition, a neutral
expression was used as a control condition. Images of sad and neutral facial
expressions were interspersed with a fixation cross. Each stimulus was
displayed for 2 s. In all, 60 images were displayed in a random order; the
fixation cross, faces with neutral expression, and faces showing affect were
each displayed 20 times. Participants were instructed to respond to sad and
neutral faces by pressing the right and left button respectively on an
MRI-compatible response box. No response was required when participants viewed
the fixation cross. Response time and accuracy data were collected.
Healthy controls were scanned once while patients were scanned twice; at the end of the washout period (baseline) and upon completion of 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy. All participants performed the same task as described above.
Image acquisition and analysis
Gradient echo echoplanar magnetic resonance images were acquired for each
participant on each occasion of scanning using a 1.5 T General Electric
Neurovascular Signa magnetic resonance system (General Electric, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, USA) fitted with 40 mT/m high speed gradients, with foam padding
and a forehead strap to limit head motion. A quadrature birdcage head coil was
used for radio frequency transmission and reception. In each of the 36
non-contiguous planes parallel to the inter-commissural (anterior
commissure–posterior commissure) plane, T2*-weighted magnetic resonance
images depicting blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) contrast were acquired
with time to echo (TE) 40 ms, a repetition time (TR) 2000 ms, slice thickness
7 mm, slice skip 0.7 mm. During the 5-minute facial affect discrimination
task, 150 images were collected. At the same session, a high-resolution
gradient echoplanar imaging data-set was acquired for subsequent
co-registration.
Image pre-processing
All images were processed and analysed using MATLAB (version 6, The
Mathworks, Natick, Massachusetts, USA) and SPM2 software (Statistical
Parametric Mapping, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London,
http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm).
Images were realigned to correct for movement. Images were normalised into
Montreal Neurological Institute space
(http://www.mni.mcgill.ca/)
by first coregistering each participants echoplanar images to their
structural MRI image. The structural image was then normalised to a T1
template and finally the same transformation was applied to the echoplanar
images. The transformed data-set for each participant was smoothed with an
isotropic Gaussian filter (full-width half-maximum 8 mm) to compensate for
normal variation in anatomy across participants.
Image analysis
In the first-level analysis, an event-related design was used convolved
with the haemodynamic response function, global signal changes were removed
and the time series were processed using a high-pass filter (128 s) to remove
low-frequency artifacts. Contrast images showing the recognition of sad
compared with neutral facial affect were produced.
Activation maps were obtained for each group and examined using separate one-sample t-tests for patients with bipolar disorder (at baseline and post-lamotrigine treatment) and control participants. Activations were considered significant at P<0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster level.
A random effects, between-group comparison was utilised to compare the healthy control group with patients with bipolar disorder at baseline while performing the task. This was achieved by entering each participants first-level contrast images into a two-sample t-test analysis using the basic models option in SPM. Differences in activation between groups considered significant at P<0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster level.
A random effects, within-group comparison was utilised to investigate the effect of lamotrigine on brain activation during task performance. This was achieved by entering each participants first-level contrast images at baseline and after 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy into a paired t-test analysis. The effect of lamotrigine was considered significant at P<0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster level.
To explore the effect of potential confounders we also examined correlations between: (a) the effect of lamotrigine on brain activation during task performance with the mean difference in HRSD scores between study entry and study endpoint; and (b) baseline task-related brain activation and daily rate of reduction in the dose of sodium valproate. Activations were considered significant at P<0.001, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster-level.
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Patients mean HRSD and Young Mania Rating Scale Scores were 13.75 (s.d.=2.43) and 1 (s.d.=1.3) respectively at study entry and 10.25 (s.d.=5.65) and 0.5 (s.d.=0.75) at study endpoint. Their mean Global Assessment of Functioning scores were 64.12 (s.d.=8.52) at study entry and 70.25 (s.d.=10.44) at endpoint. Paired t-tests did not reveal any significant differences between the two time points in any of the above variables (P>0.08 for all comparisons). The mean difference between patients HRSD score at study entry and endpoint was 3.50 (s.d.=5.07).
Functional MRI data were obtained from all 12 patients with bipolar disorder but because of to movement artifacts either at baseline or study endpoint, data from 8 individuals were used in the final analyses (5 females, 3 males).
Behavioural data
The mean accuracy of controls and patients at baseline was 38.3 (s.d.=1.18)
and 33.8 (s.d.=5.27) respectively, and following lamotrigine treatment
patients mean accuracy increased to 35.2 (s.d.=4.94). There were no
significant differences between patients and controls in accuracy of sad
facial affect recognition (t=2.36, d.f.=14, P=0.55).
Patients accuracy did not differ compared with their baseline following
lamotrigine treatment (t=7.49, d.f.=7, P=0.13).
The mean response time of controls and patients at baseline was 1.17 s (s.d.=0.19) and 1.26 s (s.d.=0.22) respectively; following lamotrigine treatment, patients mean response time was 1.23 s (s.d.= 0.23). There were no significant differences between patients and controls in the response time (t=–1.00, d.f.=14, P=0.33). Patients response times did not change compared with their baseline following lamotrigine treatment (t=0.76, d.f.=7, P=0.47).
Imaging data
Distribution of brain activation in control participants and patients with
bipolar disorder at baseline and post lamotrigine treatment Both groups at
baseline displayed activation in the middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area; BA
46), temporal regions and cerebellum. In addition, controls activated the
medial frontal gyrus (BA 6) while patients activated parietal regions. After
lamotrigine treatment, patients displayed additional activation in the medial
frontal gyrus (BA 6), inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44), postcentral gyrus (BA
3), medial occipital gyrus (BA 19) and the thalamus. Detailed coordinates of
the regional peaks are shown in Table
1.
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View this table: [in a new window] | Table 1 Regions of brain activation during sad facial affect recognition at baseline and post-lamotrigine treatment. |
Patient–control comparison at baseline
Compared with controls, greater activation was observed in patients in the
parahippocampal gyrus. However, controls showed significantly more activation
mostly right-sided, in the superior (BA 6) and inferior (BA 47) frontal gyri,
and the precentral (BA 4) and cingulate (BA 23) gyri. Additionally, increased
activation relative to patients was also seen in the left middle frontal gyrus
(BA 6). Detailed coordinates of the regional peaks are shown in
Table 2.
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View this table: [in a new window] | Table 2 Regional peak activations during the sad facial affect recognition task: case– control comparison at baseline. |
Differences in brain activation patterns in patients with bipolar disorder between baseline and following 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy
Greater activation was observed at baseline compared with study endpoint in
the right precentral gyrus (BA 4) and the left inferior temporal gyrus (BA
20).
Following 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy, increased activation compared with baseline was noted bilaterally in the inferior frontal gyri (BA 44, 45) in the left precentral gyrus (BA 6) and on the right in the medial frontal gyrus (BA 6), the paracentral lobule (BA 4) and the thalamus. Detailed coordinates of the regional peaks are shown in Table 3 and illustrated in the online Fig. DS1. Figure 1 shows the mean signal intensity in the areas of treatment effect at baseline and after lamotrigine treatment, extracted with the MarsBar tool of SPM2.
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View this table: [in a new window] | Table 3 Regional peak activations during the sad facial affect recognition task. |
![]() View larger version (17K): [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide] |
Fig. 1 Mean signal intensity changes in regions of significant treatment effect at
baseline and post lamotrigine treatment. GFd, medial frontal gyrus; GPrC,
presentral gyrus; Lpc, paracentral lobule; GFi, inferior frontal gyrus; Th,
thalamus.
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Correlations
No significant correlations, either positive or negative, were found
between lamotrigine-induced changes on brain activation and the mean
difference in HRSD scores between study entry and study endpoint. The rate of
daily reduction in the dose of sodium valproate during the washout period
correlated negatively with baseline task-related activation in the left insula
(x –50, y –22, z 20).
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Effect of medication
Dorsomedial (BA 6) and ventrolateral (BA 47) prefrontal cortical regions
were more activated in controls than in patients as was the right dorsal
cingulate gyrus (BA 23). Patients showed greater activation within temporal
regions around the left hippocampus/parahippocampal gyrus both compared with
controls at baseline, but also compared with their post-lamotrigine pattern of
activation. This finding is in partial agreement with that of Lawrence et
al.10 They
reported a positive correlation between the degree of depression and
activation within the left hippocampus, which accords with the increased
neural response in the same region observed in this study. Increased activity
in temporal lobe structures is commonly seen during processing of negative,
sadness-inducing material in healthy people (e.g. dressing to go to
their mothers
funeral)15
and has also been implicated in negative affect disturbances in individuals
with depression.16
We observed a 25% reduction in HRSD scores at follow-up in the current sample
which was not statistically significant but may still contribute to the
changes in neural responses in the temporal lobe as fMRI is likely to have
greater sensitivity to detect this effect.
Our results are in the opposite direction with regard to prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions where, at baseline, we found higher activation in controls and not in patients. This difference was noted for facial expressions representing high intensity of sadness and patients with bipolar disorder showed no behavioural deficits in sad affect recognition. The two studies have similar patient groups with comparable levels of residual depressive features and minimal manic symptoms. Although we employed an explicit as opposed to an implicit task, it is unlikely that this accounts for the disparity: Chen et al17 found no difference in the pattern of activation in patients with depression and bipolar disorder using the two different types of tasks, although implicit processing was generally associated with greater neural response in both patients and controls. A significant difference with our study is the medication status of patients. Patients with bipolar disorder in the study by Lawrence et al10 were medicated with a combination of antidepressants, atypical antipsychotics, lithium and anticonvulsants, although only one patient was on lamotrigine. However, it is difficult to argue for it leading to overactivity since similarly medicated patients with bipolar disorder in the study by Chen et al17 were not different to controls in their neural response to sad facial expressions.
Increased neural responses following lamotrigine were seen in dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortical regions that are known to be reciprocally connected to limbic (cingulate gyrus, amygdale–hippocampus complex) and subcortical regions (basal ganglia, thalamus, insula, brainstem) involved in generation and regulation of emotional states.18 The results of this study could therefore be consistent with the idea that lamotrigine treatment may lead to a normalisation in key prefrontal regions associated with emotional self-regulation akin to what has been observed with successful remission of depression.19
Limitations
However, it is possible that the enhanced cortical activation seen at study
endpoint may relate to factors other than medication, such as learning or
habituation. Patients behavioural performance at baseline and study end
was very similar and it would be difficult to argue for an effect of learning.
Familiarity with the experimental set-up at follow-up may have been associated
with less anticipatory anxiety or arousal. However, habituation is routinely
associated with decreased rather than increased neural
responses.20
Similarly, the level of symptoms between baseline and study endpoint were
comparable and it is therefore difficult to argue that the changes in the
brain activation patterns observed are consequent to significant clinical
change, although symptomatic improvement may have contributed. In fact, we
found no significant correlations between lamotrigine-induced changes in brain
activation and differences in HRSD score between study entry and endpoint. The
power of the two-by-eight data-set in this study is possibly sensitive to
spurious findings and therefore the results require replication. Our findings,
if replicated, may apply to clinical populations only as the effect of
lamotrigine on brain function in healthy individuals was not assessed.
Lamotrigine may have a unique impact on disease-related mechanisms and
therefore its effect on healthy individuals may not have been necessarily
informative with regards to its mechanism of action. Lamotrigine appeared to
normalise activation within the neural networks involved in
facial affect processing by enhancing activation in prefrontal and reducing it
in temporal regions. The clinical implications of this observation require
further study.
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