F174. OBESITY AND BRAIN INTEGRITY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND BIPOLAR DISORDER: DIVERGENT PATTERNS OF WHITE MATTER MICROSTRUCTURE DAMAGE IN A TRANSDIAGNOSTIC APPROACH

摘要

BackgroundObesity is associated with both structural and functional changes of the central nervous system, and is frequent in psychiatry settings. The increased prevalence of obesity in schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with illness severity, functioning impairment and cognitive deficits. It cannot be attributed to biases inherent in treatment-seeking samples, given that this association is detectable even in drug-naïve patients. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analyses of major brain fibers in both disorders show shared abnormalities of white matter. DTI has been employed as a highly sensitive tool to investigate microstructural changes in white matter structure. While gray matter alterations in obesity point to a consistent reduction with increasing body mass index (BMI), volumetric changes in white matter are more complex and less conclusive. Fractional anisotropy (FA) is the most commonly used parameter as it is the best estimate of fiber integrity as well as axonal and myelin degeneration, and has been reported an association with BMI in depressed BD patients, but not explored in SCZ nor in comparison with a control group (CTR). The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between obesity and brain alterations assessed by DTI in SCZ, BD and CTR.