Loss of age-related laminar differentiation of intracortical myelin in bipolar disorder

Age-related changes of intracortical myelin in bipolar disorder (BD) have been observed to deviate from the quadratic age curve observed in healthy controls (HC), but it is unclear if this holds at varying cortical depths. From BD (n = 44; age range = 17.6-45.5 years) and HC (n = 60; age range = 17.1-45.8 years) participants, we collected 3T T1-weighted (T1w) images with strong intracortical contrast. Signal values were sampled from 3 equivolume cortical depths. Linear mixed models were used to compare age-related changes in the T1w signal between depths and between groups at each depth. In HC, the age-related changes were significantly different between the superficial one-fourth depth and the deeper depths in the right ventral somatosensory (t = -4.63; FDRp = 0.00025), left dorsomedial somatosensory (t = -3.16; FDRp = 0.028), left rostral ventral premotor (t = -3.16; FDRp = 0.028), and right ventral inferior parietal cortex (t = -3.29; FDRp = 0.028). BD participants exhibited no differences in the age-related T1w signal between depths. Illness duration was negatively correlated with the T1w signal at the one-fourth depth in the right anterior cingulate cortex (rACC; rho = -0.50; FDRp = 0.029). Physiological age-related and depth-specific variation in the T1w signal were not observed in BD. The T1w signal in the rACC may reflect lifetime disease burden in the disorder.