A study to assess the magnitude of various minor physical anomalies in bipolar disorders and to compare them between bipolar disorder patients and their first degree relatives

ABSTRACT

Background: Bipolar disorder appears to be related to anatomic abnormalities in medial temporal lobe, in particular amygdale, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Two recent MRI findings have supported a neuro developmental etiology of bipolar disorders.Methods: It was a cross-sectional comparative hospital based study. The subjects were recruited for the study by the purposive sampling technique. The study was conducted at the Institute of Mental Health and Hospital Mathura Road Agra. The study sample consisted of 20 bipolar disorder patients diagnosed as per ICD-10 DCR (WHO, 1992) criteria, 20 first degree relatives, one for each patient. Total sample size is 40.Results: It was observed that in bipolar patients’ maximum anomalies were seen in Mouth (0.35±0.48) head (0.30±0.57) followed by anomalies of eyes (0.25±0.55) hand (0.20±0.41) and ear (0.05±0.22). It was observed that in Bipolar FDRs maximum anomalies were seen in mouth (0.20±0.04) ear (0.15±0.45) head (0.1±0.3) and then anomalies of eye and hand in equal propensity (0.05±0.22) and least anomalies in feet (0.00±0.00).Conclusions: The rate of MPAs in bipolar patients was more than their FDRs but not statically significant. Both sibling groups had fewer MPAs than the patients. When viewed within a vulnerability-stress model, the results are consistent with the theory that MPAs may reflect early, largely extra-genetic, stressful events.