Neural correlates of cognitive flexibility in children at risk for bipolar disorder.
BACKGROUND
Youth with bipolar disorder (BD) show behavioral and neural deficits in cognitive flexibility; however, whether such deficits exist among youths at risk for BD has not been explored.


METHODS
The current fMRI study examined the neural basis of cognitive flexibility in BD youth (n = 28), unaffected youth at risk for BD (AR; n = 13), and healthy volunteer youth (HV; n = 21) by comparing brain activation patterns while participants performed the change task. On change trials, subjects must inhibit a prepotent response and execute an alternate one.


RESULTS
During successful change trials, both BD and AR youth had increased right ventrolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal activity, compared to HV youth. During failed change trials, both BD and AR youth exhibited increased caudate activation relative to HV youth, but BD youth showed increased activation in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) relative to the other two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Abnormal activity in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal cortex, and striatum during a cognitive flexibility task may represent a potential BD endophenotype, but subgenual ACC dysfunction may represent a marker of BD illness itself.
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD 20892-2670, USA. pilyoung.kim@nih.gov
Pilyoung
P
Kim
Sarah E
SE
Jenkins
Megan E
ME
Connolly
Christen M
CM
Deveney
Stephen J
SJ
Fromm
Melissa A
MA
Brotman
Eric E
EE
Nelson
Daniel S
DS
Pine
Ellen
E
Leibenluft
D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000235:genetics; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011930:Reaction Time
D010100:Oxygen