Individual prediction of symptomatic converters in youth offspring of bipolar parents using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

In this study, we used support vector machine (SVM) to characterize the potential of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) in predicting the first mood episode in youth bipolar offspring. From a longitudinal neuroimaging study, 19 at-risk youth who developed their first mood episode (converters), and 19 without mood episodes during follow-up (non-converters) were selected and matched for age, sex and follow-up time. Baseline1H-MRS data were obtained from anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Glutamate (Glu), myo-inositol (mI), choline (Cho),N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), and phosphocreatine plus creatine (PCr  + Cr) levels were calculated. SVM with a linear kernel was adopted to classify converters and non-converters based on their baseline metabolites. SVM allowed the significant classification of converters and non-converters across all regions for Cho (accuracy = 76.0%), but not for other meta bolites. Considering all metabolites within each region, SVM allowed the significant classification of converters and non-converters for left VLPFC (accuracy = 76.5%), but not for right VLPFC or ACC. The combined mI, PCr + Cr, and Cho from left VLPFC achieved the highest accuracy differentia ting converters from non-converters (79.0%). Our findings from this exploratory study suggested that1H-MRS levels of mI, Cho, and PCr  + Cr from left VLPFC might be useful to predict the development of first mood episode in...
Source: European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research