Altered peripheral immune/inflammatory system and brain volumetric changes have been implicated in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD). This study aimed to evaluate how peripheral levels of cytokines are related to volumetric brain changes in euthymic patients with BD.

Euthymic patients with BD (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 22) were enrolled in this exploratory study. Blood samples were collected on the same day of clinical assessment and neuroimaging. Cytokines were measured through cytometric bead array method. Neuroimaging data were acquired using a sagittal three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging T1-weighted fast field echo sequence and was processed using FreeSurfer.

Compared to controls, BD patients had significantly lower volumes in the cingulate, medial-orbitofrontal (MOF) and parahippocampal regions. We found a negative correlation between right MOF volume and interferon-gamma levels (β = −0.431, P = .049) and a positive correlation between interleukin-10 levels and left posterior cingulate volume (β = 0.457, P = .048).

Our results support the involvement of inflammatory pathways in structural brain changes in BD.

双相情感障碍 (BD) 的病理生理学涉及外周免疫/炎症系统改变和脑体积变化。本研究旨在评估外周细胞因子水平如何与正常的 BD 患者的脑体积变化相关。

患有 BD 的 Euthymic 患者 (n = 21) 和健康对照 (n = 22) 被纳入这项探索性研究。在临床评估和神经影像学检查的同一天采集血样。通过细胞计数珠阵列法测量细胞因子。使用矢状三维磁共振成像 T1 加权快速场回波序列获取神经影像数据，并使用 FreeSurfer 进行处理。

与对照组相比，BD 患者的扣带回、内侧眶额 (MOF) 和海马旁区域的体积明显较小。我们发现右侧 MOF 体积与干扰素-γ 水平呈负相关（β  = −0.431，P  = .049），白细胞介素 10 水平与左侧后扣带回体积呈正相关（β  = 0.457，P  = .048）。

我们的结果支持炎症通路参与 BD 的大脑结构变化。