title: N-acetyl aspartate levels in adolescents with bipolar and/or cannabis use disorders.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Bipolar and cannabis use disorders commonly co-occur during adolescence, and neurochemical studies may help clarify the pathophysiology underlying this co-occurrence. This study compared metabolite concentrations in the left ventral lateral prefrontal cortex among adolescents with bipolar disorder (bipolar group; n = 14), adolescents with a cannabis use disorder (cannabis use group; n = 13), adolescents with cannabis use and bipolar disorders (bipolar and cannabis group; n = 25), and healthy adolescents (healthy controls; n = 15). We hypothesized that adolescents with bipolar disorder (with or without cannabis use disorder) would have decreased N-acetyl aspartate levels in the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex compared to the other groups and that the bipolar and cannabis group would have the lowest N-acetyl aspartate levels of all groups.
  
  
  METHODS
  N-acetyl aspartate concentrations in the left ventral lateral prefrontal cortex were obtained using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Adolescents with bipolar disorder showed significantly lower left ventral lateral prefrontal cortex N-acetyl aspartate levels, but post hoc analyses indicated that this was primarily due to increased N-acetyl aspartate levels in the cannabis group. The cannabis use disorder group had significantly higher N-acetyl aspartate levels compared to the bipolar disorder and the bipolar and cannabis groups (p = .0002 and p = .0002, respectively). Pearson correlations revealed a significant positive correlation between amount of cannabis used and N-acetyl aspartate concentrations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescents with cannabis use disorder showed higher levels of N-acetyl aspartate concentrations that were significantly positively associated with the amount of cannabis used; however, this finding was not present in adolescents with comorbid bipolar disorder.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience, Division of Bipolar Disorder Research , University of Cincinnati College of Medicine , Cincinnati , OH 45219 , USA
authors.forename: Samantha M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bitter
authors.forename: Wade A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.forename: Wen-Jang
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Caleb M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Adler
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Eliassen
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Strakowski
authors.forename: Melissa P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: DelBello
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000032:analysis; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D002189:Marijuana Abuse / Q000150:complications* / Q000378:metabolism*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D066244:Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D001224:Aspartic Acid; C000179:N-acetylaspartate
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