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Q: Any Connection between CP & Bipolar?
Dr. Phelps,
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 3 years ago and I also have CP. (I was
born 2 months premature.) I've been reading a lot about the use of MRIs in both
bipolar disorder and in confirming CP diagnosis and to my untrained mind the
pictures these articles describe seem quite similar. Is there any connection
between the two?
I know this question won't be useful to very many people on the site, but I
would appreciate your thoughts.
Susan
Dear Susan --
I had to do a literature search (used
Pub Med, entered
"cerebral palsy bipolar disorder") to see if there was any known connection.
Here's a
paper on the topic. If you ask librarian to get you the full text, you
might find something interesting in the literature review or the discussion.
You were probably talking about "periventricular white matter hyperintensities"
seen on MRI in bipolar disorder? Note that the authors are also talking about
that:
An interesting association between the
periventricular leucomalacia as an aetiological factor in cerebral palsy and
the white matter lesions seen on magnetic resonance imaging in cases of
bipolar disorder is noted.
Periventricular leukomalacia is fancy talk for
"something bad, mal; in the white matter -- the fiber tracts, as opposed to the
gray matter, which is neuron cell bodies (leuko means white); around the
ventricles (the blue tunnels in this
picture set of
brain anatomy).
In other words, you're not the first person to think
there might be a link between CP and bipolar disorder -- but you might be the
second research group to do so.
Dr. Phelps
Published September, 2004
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