查看文章

The absence of neurobiological diagnostic markers of bipolar disorder (BD) leads to its frequent misdiagnosis as unipolar depression (UD). We investigated if changes in fractional anisotropy (FA) could help to differentiate BD from UD in the state of depression.

Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) we employed a voxel‐based analysis approach to examine fractional anisotropy (FA) in 86 patients experiencing an acute major depressive episode according to DSM‐IV (N=39 BD, mean age 39.2 years; N=43 UD, mean age 39.0 years), and 42 healthy controls (HC, mean age 36.1 years). The groups did not differ in sex, age or total education time. FA was investigated in white matter (FA >.2) and hypothesis‐driven anatomically defined tracts (region‐of‐interest [ROI] analysis). Additionally, an exploratory gray matter FA analysis was performed.

White matter analysis showed decreased FA in …