#bipolardisorder — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bipolardisorder, aggregated by home.social.
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The Careful Season
It hit today, like a freight train. It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away. Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum […] -
The Careful Season
It hit today, like a freight train. It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away. Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum […] -
The Careful Season
It hit today, like a freight train. It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away. Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum […] -
The Careful Season
It hit today, like a freight train. It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away. Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum […] -
The Careful Season
It hit today, like a freight train. It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away. Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum […] -
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Over half the risk for postpartum psychosis is tied to genetics, large study finds
New research published in Molecular Psychiatry indicates that postpartum psychosis is heavily influenced by both common and rare genetic factors, with about half of the risk tied to genetics. The study also identified a specific gene involved in cholesterol production that provides evidence for shared biological pathways between postpartum psychosis, schizophrenia, and certain autoimmune conditions.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but severe mental health emergency that occurs in roughly 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 mothers shortly after childbirth. It involves an abrupt onset of symptoms like mania, severe depression, confusion, and psychosis, which is when a person loses touch with reality through hallucinations or delusions. The condition poses heavy risks to both the mother and the infant, often requiring immediate medical hospitalization.
Earlier research established that this vulnerability has deep biological roots. A 2001 study showed that the tendency to experience a severe psychotic episode triggered specifically by childbirth runs strongly in families. Moving beyond familial history, a 2013 study discovered that women experiencing their first episode of postpartum psychosis show disruptions in their immune systems.
Alongside these immune factors, metabolic changes have also been implicated, as a 2017 meta-analysis suggested that people going through their first psychotic episode tend to have altered cholesterol levels. These findings paved the way for large-scale genetic sequencing to pinpoint the exact genes and shared biological pathways involved. To build on these insights, researchers led by Seulgi Jung and study co-author Behrang Mahjani, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who directs the Mahjani Lab, aimed to detail the specific genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis.
“Postpartum psychosis is a severe but understudied psychiatric disorder,” Mahjani told PsyPost. “Our previous study showed that sisters of women with postpartum psychosis have a markedly elevated risk, but its heritability had not been quantified and no specific risk genes had been identified. We therefore examined the contribution of both common and rare genetic variation to the disorder.”
The researchers first used data from Swedish national registers to estimate the overall genetic risk of the disorder. They examined health records from over 1.6 million mothers who gave birth to their first child between 1980 and 2017. Among this massive group, 2,514 mothers, or 0.15 percent, developed postpartum psychosis.
By tracking the health records of the mothers’ sisters and cousins, the researchers estimated the heritability of postpartum psychosis to be 55 percent. This indicates that more than half of the variation in who develops the condition can be attributed to genetic factors, a rate similar to that of bipolar disorder.
“The genetic contribution is substantial,” Mahjani explained. “Heritability in this range means that inherited variation accounts for a large share of the differences in vulnerability between individuals, comparable to what is seen for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”
“This supports the view that postpartum psychosis reflects an underlying biological vulnerability rather than being simply a psychological reaction to the stress of childbirth,” he added.
To see how much of this heritability comes from common genetic variations, the team turned to the All of Us Research Program, a large national database of genetic and health information. They focused on whole-genome sequencing data from 198 mothers of European ancestry who had experienced postpartum psychosis, comparing them to 2,013 matched controls.
The team found that common genetic variants explained about 45.6 percent of the risk for postpartum psychosis. Because this is slightly lower than the 55 percent heritability estimated from family histories, it suggests that rarer genetic variations also play a role in the disorder.
The researchers then looked closely at rare genetic changes, specifically focusing on protein-truncating variants. These are severe mutations that essentially break a gene, preventing it from producing a functional protein. They analyzed a larger sample of 461 cases of postpartum psychosis and 4,610 unaffected controls.
Women with postpartum psychosis had an unusually high number of these disruptive mutations in genes that are generally highly constrained, meaning the genes do not usually tolerate mutations well without causing major biological problems. Based on these mutation patterns, the researchers estimated that there are around 81 specific genes that contribute to the risk of postpartum psychosis.
When analyzing which individual genes were most affected, the gene HMGCR stood out strongly. This gene contains the instructions for making a key enzyme that controls how the body produces cholesterol. A second gene, DNMT1, which helps maintain how DNA is regulated and read by the body, also showed a possible, though less certain, link to the disorder.
“The rare variants in HMGCR have large effects in the people who carry them, which is what allowed us to detect the gene despite a relatively modest sample,” Mahjani noted.
However, he cautioned against oversimplifying this connection. “HMGCR should not be read as ‘the postpartum psychosis gene,'” he said. “It is one of the many genes contributing to risk, and like other severe psychiatric disorders the condition is highly polygenic.”
To explore the broader impact of these genes, the researchers checked for mutations in HMGCR and DNMT1 across hundreds of thousands of individuals in two large medical biobanks. They found that rare mutations in HMGCR were also linked to conditions like vascular dementia and unspecified mental disorders, indicating the gene influences brain health outside of the postpartum period.
Finally, the researchers compared their list of genetic risk factors for postpartum psychosis against genes known to cause other illnesses. They found that a substantial percentage of the top risk genes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were also linked to postpartum psychosis. Additionally, they noted a genetic overlap with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia gravis, and Crohn’s disease, with HMGCR appearing as a top risk gene for both schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis.
“The results were largely consistent with what genetic studies of related psychiatric disorders would predict,” Mahjani said.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. First, definitions of postpartum psychosis can vary across different medical records. The registry data used in the study often lacked the precise end dates of episodes, which makes it harder to classify the exact duration of the illness.
The researchers also did not separate women whose postpartum psychosis was their very first psychiatric episode from those who had a pre-existing condition, such as bipolar disorder. As a result, some of the genetic patterns they found might reflect severe mental illness in general rather than factors entirely unique to the postpartum period.
Additionally, the genetic sequencing data relied heavily on individuals of European ancestry, meaning the results might not fully capture the genetic risk factors present in other populations. Future studies with more diverse groups will help provide a more complete picture of the condition’s genetic roots.
“Our immediate priority is to replicate these findings in larger samples,” Mahjani said of the team’s next steps. “Beyond that, we want to understand how the genes we identified actually function in the disorder, and how genetic vulnerability interacts with the hormonal and immune changes that occur during and after pregnancy.”
“Mainly that postpartum psychosis has been remarkably understudied relative to its severity,” he concluded. “Progress will depend on continued access to the kind of large-scale genomic resources that made this work possible, such as the All of Us Research Program, and on studies large enough to identify additional risk genes with confidence.”
The study, “Genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis: from common to rare genetic variation,” was authored by Seulgi Jung, Madison Caballero, Adrianna Kępińska, Shelby Smout, Trine Munk-Olsen, Thalia K. Robakis, Veerle Bergink, and Behrang Mahjani.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PostpartumPsychosis #GeneticRisk #MentalHealthResearch #HMGCR #DNMT1 #CholesterolGenes #SchizophreniaOverlap #BipolarDisorder #AutoimmuneLinks #GenomicsStudy
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DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Over half the risk for postpartum psychosis is tied to genetics, large study finds
New research published in Molecular Psychiatry indicates that postpartum psychosis is heavily influenced by both common and rare genetic factors, with about half of the risk tied to genetics. The study also identified a specific gene involved in cholesterol production that provides evidence for shared biological pathways between postpartum psychosis, schizophrenia, and certain autoimmune conditions.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but severe mental health emergency that occurs in roughly 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 mothers shortly after childbirth. It involves an abrupt onset of symptoms like mania, severe depression, confusion, and psychosis, which is when a person loses touch with reality through hallucinations or delusions. The condition poses heavy risks to both the mother and the infant, often requiring immediate medical hospitalization.
Earlier research established that this vulnerability has deep biological roots. A 2001 study showed that the tendency to experience a severe psychotic episode triggered specifically by childbirth runs strongly in families. Moving beyond familial history, a 2013 study discovered that women experiencing their first episode of postpartum psychosis show disruptions in their immune systems.
Alongside these immune factors, metabolic changes have also been implicated, as a 2017 meta-analysis suggested that people going through their first psychotic episode tend to have altered cholesterol levels. These findings paved the way for large-scale genetic sequencing to pinpoint the exact genes and shared biological pathways involved. To build on these insights, researchers led by Seulgi Jung and study co-author Behrang Mahjani, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who directs the Mahjani Lab, aimed to detail the specific genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis.
“Postpartum psychosis is a severe but understudied psychiatric disorder,” Mahjani told PsyPost. “Our previous study showed that sisters of women with postpartum psychosis have a markedly elevated risk, but its heritability had not been quantified and no specific risk genes had been identified. We therefore examined the contribution of both common and rare genetic variation to the disorder.”
The researchers first used data from Swedish national registers to estimate the overall genetic risk of the disorder. They examined health records from over 1.6 million mothers who gave birth to their first child between 1980 and 2017. Among this massive group, 2,514 mothers, or 0.15 percent, developed postpartum psychosis.
By tracking the health records of the mothers’ sisters and cousins, the researchers estimated the heritability of postpartum psychosis to be 55 percent. This indicates that more than half of the variation in who develops the condition can be attributed to genetic factors, a rate similar to that of bipolar disorder.
“The genetic contribution is substantial,” Mahjani explained. “Heritability in this range means that inherited variation accounts for a large share of the differences in vulnerability between individuals, comparable to what is seen for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”
“This supports the view that postpartum psychosis reflects an underlying biological vulnerability rather than being simply a psychological reaction to the stress of childbirth,” he added.
To see how much of this heritability comes from common genetic variations, the team turned to the All of Us Research Program, a large national database of genetic and health information. They focused on whole-genome sequencing data from 198 mothers of European ancestry who had experienced postpartum psychosis, comparing them to 2,013 matched controls.
The team found that common genetic variants explained about 45.6 percent of the risk for postpartum psychosis. Because this is slightly lower than the 55 percent heritability estimated from family histories, it suggests that rarer genetic variations also play a role in the disorder.
The researchers then looked closely at rare genetic changes, specifically focusing on protein-truncating variants. These are severe mutations that essentially break a gene, preventing it from producing a functional protein. They analyzed a larger sample of 461 cases of postpartum psychosis and 4,610 unaffected controls.
Women with postpartum psychosis had an unusually high number of these disruptive mutations in genes that are generally highly constrained, meaning the genes do not usually tolerate mutations well without causing major biological problems. Based on these mutation patterns, the researchers estimated that there are around 81 specific genes that contribute to the risk of postpartum psychosis.
When analyzing which individual genes were most affected, the gene HMGCR stood out strongly. This gene contains the instructions for making a key enzyme that controls how the body produces cholesterol. A second gene, DNMT1, which helps maintain how DNA is regulated and read by the body, also showed a possible, though less certain, link to the disorder.
“The rare variants in HMGCR have large effects in the people who carry them, which is what allowed us to detect the gene despite a relatively modest sample,” Mahjani noted.
However, he cautioned against oversimplifying this connection. “HMGCR should not be read as ‘the postpartum psychosis gene,'” he said. “It is one of the many genes contributing to risk, and like other severe psychiatric disorders the condition is highly polygenic.”
To explore the broader impact of these genes, the researchers checked for mutations in HMGCR and DNMT1 across hundreds of thousands of individuals in two large medical biobanks. They found that rare mutations in HMGCR were also linked to conditions like vascular dementia and unspecified mental disorders, indicating the gene influences brain health outside of the postpartum period.
Finally, the researchers compared their list of genetic risk factors for postpartum psychosis against genes known to cause other illnesses. They found that a substantial percentage of the top risk genes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were also linked to postpartum psychosis. Additionally, they noted a genetic overlap with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia gravis, and Crohn’s disease, with HMGCR appearing as a top risk gene for both schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis.
“The results were largely consistent with what genetic studies of related psychiatric disorders would predict,” Mahjani said.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. First, definitions of postpartum psychosis can vary across different medical records. The registry data used in the study often lacked the precise end dates of episodes, which makes it harder to classify the exact duration of the illness.
The researchers also did not separate women whose postpartum psychosis was their very first psychiatric episode from those who had a pre-existing condition, such as bipolar disorder. As a result, some of the genetic patterns they found might reflect severe mental illness in general rather than factors entirely unique to the postpartum period.
Additionally, the genetic sequencing data relied heavily on individuals of European ancestry, meaning the results might not fully capture the genetic risk factors present in other populations. Future studies with more diverse groups will help provide a more complete picture of the condition’s genetic roots.
“Our immediate priority is to replicate these findings in larger samples,” Mahjani said of the team’s next steps. “Beyond that, we want to understand how the genes we identified actually function in the disorder, and how genetic vulnerability interacts with the hormonal and immune changes that occur during and after pregnancy.”
“Mainly that postpartum psychosis has been remarkably understudied relative to its severity,” he concluded. “Progress will depend on continued access to the kind of large-scale genomic resources that made this work possible, such as the All of Us Research Program, and on studies large enough to identify additional risk genes with confidence.”
The study, “Genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis: from common to rare genetic variation,” was authored by Seulgi Jung, Madison Caballero, Adrianna Kępińska, Shelby Smout, Trine Munk-Olsen, Thalia K. Robakis, Veerle Bergink, and Behrang Mahjani.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PostpartumPsychosis #GeneticRisk #MentalHealthResearch #HMGCR #DNMT1 #CholesterolGenes #SchizophreniaOverlap #BipolarDisorder #AutoimmuneLinks #GenomicsStudy
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DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Over half the risk for postpartum psychosis is tied to genetics, large study finds
New research published in Molecular Psychiatry indicates that postpartum psychosis is heavily influenced by both common and rare genetic factors, with about half of the risk tied to genetics. The study also identified a specific gene involved in cholesterol production that provides evidence for shared biological pathways between postpartum psychosis, schizophrenia, and certain autoimmune conditions.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but severe mental health emergency that occurs in roughly 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 mothers shortly after childbirth. It involves an abrupt onset of symptoms like mania, severe depression, confusion, and psychosis, which is when a person loses touch with reality through hallucinations or delusions. The condition poses heavy risks to both the mother and the infant, often requiring immediate medical hospitalization.
Earlier research established that this vulnerability has deep biological roots. A 2001 study showed that the tendency to experience a severe psychotic episode triggered specifically by childbirth runs strongly in families. Moving beyond familial history, a 2013 study discovered that women experiencing their first episode of postpartum psychosis show disruptions in their immune systems.
Alongside these immune factors, metabolic changes have also been implicated, as a 2017 meta-analysis suggested that people going through their first psychotic episode tend to have altered cholesterol levels. These findings paved the way for large-scale genetic sequencing to pinpoint the exact genes and shared biological pathways involved. To build on these insights, researchers led by Seulgi Jung and study co-author Behrang Mahjani, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who directs the Mahjani Lab, aimed to detail the specific genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis.
“Postpartum psychosis is a severe but understudied psychiatric disorder,” Mahjani told PsyPost. “Our previous study showed that sisters of women with postpartum psychosis have a markedly elevated risk, but its heritability had not been quantified and no specific risk genes had been identified. We therefore examined the contribution of both common and rare genetic variation to the disorder.”
The researchers first used data from Swedish national registers to estimate the overall genetic risk of the disorder. They examined health records from over 1.6 million mothers who gave birth to their first child between 1980 and 2017. Among this massive group, 2,514 mothers, or 0.15 percent, developed postpartum psychosis.
By tracking the health records of the mothers’ sisters and cousins, the researchers estimated the heritability of postpartum psychosis to be 55 percent. This indicates that more than half of the variation in who develops the condition can be attributed to genetic factors, a rate similar to that of bipolar disorder.
“The genetic contribution is substantial,” Mahjani explained. “Heritability in this range means that inherited variation accounts for a large share of the differences in vulnerability between individuals, comparable to what is seen for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”
“This supports the view that postpartum psychosis reflects an underlying biological vulnerability rather than being simply a psychological reaction to the stress of childbirth,” he added.
To see how much of this heritability comes from common genetic variations, the team turned to the All of Us Research Program, a large national database of genetic and health information. They focused on whole-genome sequencing data from 198 mothers of European ancestry who had experienced postpartum psychosis, comparing them to 2,013 matched controls.
The team found that common genetic variants explained about 45.6 percent of the risk for postpartum psychosis. Because this is slightly lower than the 55 percent heritability estimated from family histories, it suggests that rarer genetic variations also play a role in the disorder.
The researchers then looked closely at rare genetic changes, specifically focusing on protein-truncating variants. These are severe mutations that essentially break a gene, preventing it from producing a functional protein. They analyzed a larger sample of 461 cases of postpartum psychosis and 4,610 unaffected controls.
Women with postpartum psychosis had an unusually high number of these disruptive mutations in genes that are generally highly constrained, meaning the genes do not usually tolerate mutations well without causing major biological problems. Based on these mutation patterns, the researchers estimated that there are around 81 specific genes that contribute to the risk of postpartum psychosis.
When analyzing which individual genes were most affected, the gene HMGCR stood out strongly. This gene contains the instructions for making a key enzyme that controls how the body produces cholesterol. A second gene, DNMT1, which helps maintain how DNA is regulated and read by the body, also showed a possible, though less certain, link to the disorder.
“The rare variants in HMGCR have large effects in the people who carry them, which is what allowed us to detect the gene despite a relatively modest sample,” Mahjani noted.
However, he cautioned against oversimplifying this connection. “HMGCR should not be read as ‘the postpartum psychosis gene,'” he said. “It is one of the many genes contributing to risk, and like other severe psychiatric disorders the condition is highly polygenic.”
To explore the broader impact of these genes, the researchers checked for mutations in HMGCR and DNMT1 across hundreds of thousands of individuals in two large medical biobanks. They found that rare mutations in HMGCR were also linked to conditions like vascular dementia and unspecified mental disorders, indicating the gene influences brain health outside of the postpartum period.
Finally, the researchers compared their list of genetic risk factors for postpartum psychosis against genes known to cause other illnesses. They found that a substantial percentage of the top risk genes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were also linked to postpartum psychosis. Additionally, they noted a genetic overlap with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia gravis, and Crohn’s disease, with HMGCR appearing as a top risk gene for both schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis.
“The results were largely consistent with what genetic studies of related psychiatric disorders would predict,” Mahjani said.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. First, definitions of postpartum psychosis can vary across different medical records. The registry data used in the study often lacked the precise end dates of episodes, which makes it harder to classify the exact duration of the illness.
The researchers also did not separate women whose postpartum psychosis was their very first psychiatric episode from those who had a pre-existing condition, such as bipolar disorder. As a result, some of the genetic patterns they found might reflect severe mental illness in general rather than factors entirely unique to the postpartum period.
Additionally, the genetic sequencing data relied heavily on individuals of European ancestry, meaning the results might not fully capture the genetic risk factors present in other populations. Future studies with more diverse groups will help provide a more complete picture of the condition’s genetic roots.
“Our immediate priority is to replicate these findings in larger samples,” Mahjani said of the team’s next steps. “Beyond that, we want to understand how the genes we identified actually function in the disorder, and how genetic vulnerability interacts with the hormonal and immune changes that occur during and after pregnancy.”
“Mainly that postpartum psychosis has been remarkably understudied relative to its severity,” he concluded. “Progress will depend on continued access to the kind of large-scale genomic resources that made this work possible, such as the All of Us Research Program, and on studies large enough to identify additional risk genes with confidence.”
The study, “Genetic architecture of postpartum psychosis: from common to rare genetic variation,” was authored by Seulgi Jung, Madison Caballero, Adrianna Kępińska, Shelby Smout, Trine Munk-Olsen, Thalia K. Robakis, Veerle Bergink, and Behrang Mahjani.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PostpartumPsychosis #GeneticRisk #MentalHealthResearch #HMGCR #DNMT1 #CholesterolGenes #SchizophreniaOverlap #BipolarDisorder #AutoimmuneLinks #GenomicsStudy
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DATE: July 16, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Genetic risk for cannabis use disorder linked to brain differences in youth
URL: https://www.psypost.org/genetic-risk-for-cannabis-use-disorder-linked-to-brain-differences-in-youth/
A person’s genetic risk for developing a cannabis addiction is associated with structural brain differences during adolescence, even in individuals who have never struggled with substance abuse. The finding indicates that some brain variations previously attributed to marijuana use might partly originate from an inherited biological predisposition. The study was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Bipolar disorder is a severe mental health condition characterized by dramatic shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels. People with the condition experience intense emotional states known as mood episodes, which can include periods of extreme elation or irritability, known as mania, and periods of deep sadness, known as depression. The condition often emerges during the teenage years and is a leading cause of functional disability among youth globally.
Teenagers with bipolar disorder frequently face additional psychiatric challenges throughout their schooling and home lives. Research shows that about 30 percent of youth diagnosed with bipolar disorder also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. Cannabis use disorder ranks as the most common addiction in this specific clinical group. Youth with bipolar disorder use cannabis at higher rates than the general population and face an elevated risk of developing a long-term dependency on the drug.
Heavy cannabis use has been repeatedly linked to worse outcomes for individuals with bipolar disorder. These negative impacts include a higher risk of suicide, a delayed recovery process, and an increased likelihood of experiencing psychosis. Past brain imaging studies have also noted structural differences in the brains of teenagers who regularly consume cannabis, both with and without mood disorders. The exact nature of these differences has varied across different observational reports.
Some research points to larger gray matter volume in certain brain regions among users, while other reports document smaller volumes in those same areas. Because most of these studies observe people at a single point in time, it is difficult to determine whether cannabis changes the brain or if people with preexisting brain differences are simply more likely to use the drug. To separate cause from effect in these brain measurements, scientists sometimes examine genetics. Addiction involves inherited physical traits, and modern genetic testing allows researchers to measure a person’s underlying vulnerability to an addiction before it ever develops.
Scientists do this using an advanced mathematical tool called a polygenic risk score. Unlike older tests that look for a single faulty gene, a polygenic risk score tallies up thousands of tiny genetic variations across a person’s entire DNA sequence. By comparing these variations against data from people who have a condition, researchers can calculate a customized score that estimates an individual’s overall genetic likelihood of developing that specific problem. Alysha Sultan, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, recognized an opportunity to apply this genetics tool to brain imaging.
Sultan and her colleagues set out to discover if a high polygenic risk score for cannabis use disorder correlated with brain structure in youths, regardless of their developmental history of drug use. The researchers recruited 114 teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 20. The sample included 67 youths who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a specialty psychiatric clinic. The remaining 47 participants were healthy controls randomly recruited from the community who had no personal or family history of major psychiatric disorders.
The team asked all participants to provide a saliva sample. From this saliva, the scientists extracted DNA and scanned the genetic sequences to calculate a specific polygenic risk score for cannabis use disorder for every participant. To create the scoring baseline, they relied on data from a preexisting study of adults that mapped the genetic profiles of tens of thousands of people with a diagnosed cannabis dependency.
After collecting the genetic data, the researchers brought the participants in for brain imaging. They used a magnetic resonance imaging machine, commonly known as an MRI, to capture high-resolution pictures of the participants’ brains. The team focused on the cerebral cortex, the folded outer layer of the brain that manages complex thought, memory, and perception.
The researchers measured three specific physical traits of the cerebral cortex: volume, surface area, and thickness. Volume refers to the total amount of space a specific brain region takes up, while surface area measures the expanse of the folded outer layer. Thickness gauges the physical depth of the gray matter on that layer. The scientists wrote statistical models to compare these structural measurements against the participants’ genetic risk scores, accounting for variables like age, sex, and overall head size.
The neuroimaging data revealed a consistent physical pattern. Across the entire group of youths, a higher genetic risk score for cannabis use disorder matched up with localized reductions in brain size. The researchers observed lower total volume and lower surface area in a brain region called the right superior frontal gyrus. Located near the very top and front of the brain, the superior frontal gyrus is involved in higher cognitive functions such as spatial processing and working memory, which is the ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind over short periods.
The researchers also noticed a smaller surface area in a region called the left paracentral lobule. This area rests near the top center of the brain and helps process sensory information from the body. These results were evident regardless of whether the youths had bipolar disorder or whether they had ever tried cannabis. The researchers ran specialized tests that completely excluded the participants who currently or previously had a cannabis use disorder, and the structural differences remained.
When the team split the participants by diagnosis, they found similar patterns among the healthy volunteers. Healthy teenagers with a higher genetic risk for the addiction exhibited lower brain volume and surface area in both the left and the right superior frontal gyrus.
The results among the participants diagnosed with bipolar disorder were not statistically significant when analyzed on their own. The researchers suspect this outcome relates to the vast biological complexities associated with bipolar disorder itself. The youths with the condition had high rates of anxiety and attention difficulties, took various psychiatric medications, and reported different medical histories. These competing factors may alter brain structure in their own localized ways, creating statistical noise in the data that masks the subtler differences linked strictly to the cannabis risk genes.
Sultan and her colleagues pointed out a few constraints to their investigation. Addiction involves similar genetic pathways across different types of substances, meaning people with a genetic liability for cannabis use disorder often share a generalized genetic vulnerability to alcohol or nicotine. The risk scores used in the study might reflect a broader tendency toward behavioral disinhibition rather than a strict vulnerability to cannabis alone. The genetic baselines used in the study also relied on data from individuals of European ancestry, meaning the relationships might differ for people of other ethnic backgrounds.
The initial findings offer a new way to interpret past neuroimaging research. Because a genetic predisposition alone corresponds with smaller frontal brain regions, some of the brain differences previously blamed on teen marijuana use might have existed before the drug use began. The scientists suggest that longer studies following the same teenagers into adulthood could help explain how inherited vulnerabilities shape the growing brain over time.
The study, “Association of polygenic risk for cannabis use disorder with brain structure among youth with and without bipolar disorder,” was authored by Alysha A. Sultan, Clement C. Zai, Kody G. Kennedy, L. Trevor Young, Bradley J. MacIntosh, and Benjamin I. Goldstein.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/genetic-risk-for-cannabis-use-disorder-linked-to-brain-differences-in-youth/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CannabisUseDisorder #GeneticRisk #BrainStructure #AdolescentBrain #PolygenicRiskScore #BipolarDisorder #Neuroimaging #FrontalGyrus #CerebralCortex #YouthMentalHealth