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Postmortem evidence of brain inflammatory markers in bipolar disorder: a systematic review

Molecular Psychiatry volume 25, pages 94–113 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic affective disorder with extreme mood swings that include mania or hypomania and depression. Though the exact mechanism of BD is unknown, neuroinflammation is one of the numerous investigated etiopathophysiological causes of BD. This article presents a systematic review of the data regarding brain inflammation evaluating microglia, astrocytes, cytokines, chemokines, adhesion molecules, and other inflammatory markers in postmortem BD brain samples. This systematic review was performed according to PRISMA recommendations, and relevant studies were identified by searching the PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, LILACS, IBECS, and Web of Science databases for peer-reviewed journal articles published by March 2019. Quality of included studies appraised using the QUADAS-2 tool. Among the 1814 articles included in the primary screening, 51 articles measured inflammatory markers in postmortem BD brain samples. A number of studies have shown evidence of inflammation in BD postmortem brain samples. However, an absolute statement cannot be concluded whether neuroinflammation is present in BD due to the large number of studies did not evaluate the presence of infiltrating peripheral immune cells in the central nervous system (CNS) parenchyma, cytokines levels, and microglia activation in the same postmortem brain sample. For example, out of 15 studies that evaluated microglia cells markers, 8 studies found no effect of BD on these cells. Similarly, 17 out of 51 studies evaluating astrocytes markers, 9 studies did not find any effect of BD on astrocyte cells, whereas 8 studies found a decrease and 2 studies presented both increase and decrease in different brain regions. In addition, multiple factors account for the variability across the studies, including postmortem interval, brain area studied, age at diagnosis, undergoing treatment, and others. Future analyses should rectify these potential sources of heterogeneity and reach a consensus regarding the inflammatory markers in postmortem BD brain samples.

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Acknowledgements

The Translational Psychiatry Program (USA) is funded by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The Laboratory of Neurosciences (Brazil) is one of the centers of the National Institute for Molecular Medicine (INCT-MM) and one of the members of the Centre of Excellence in Applied Neurosciences of Santa Catarina (NENASC). Its research is supported by grants from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (JQ and TB), the Foundation for Research and Innovation of the State of Santa Catarina (FAPESC) (JQ and TB), and the InstitutoCérebro e Mente (JQ) and UNESC (JQ and TB).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Translational Psychiatry Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Houston, TX, USA

    Vijayasree V. Giridharan, Pavani Sayana, Omar F. Pinjari, Naveed Ahmad, João Quevedo & Tatiana Barichello

  2. Laboratory of Experimental Pathophysiology, Graduate Program in Health Sciences, University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNESC), Criciúma, SC, Brazil

    Maria Ines da Rosa & Tatiana Barichello

  3. Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Houston, TX, USA

    João Quevedo

  4. Neuroscience Graduate Program, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX, USA

    João Quevedo & Tatiana Barichello

  5. Translational Psychiatry Laboratory, Graduate Program in Health Sciences, University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNESC), Criciúma, SC, Brazil

    João Quevedo

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  1. Vijayasree V. Giridharan
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Correspondence to Tatiana Barichello.

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Conflict of interest

JQ: Clinical Research Support: Allergan (Clinical Trial), Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Clinical Trial). Advisory Boards, Speaker Bureaus, Expert Witness, or Consultant. Assurex Health, Inc. (Speaker Bureau), Daiichi Sankyo (Speaker Bureau), Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Speaker Bureau). Patent, Equity, or Royalty: Instituto de Neurociencias. Dr. Joao Quevedo (Stockholder), Other Artmed Editora (Copyright), Artmed Panamericana (Copyright), Elsevier (Copyright). The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Giridharan, V.V., Sayana, P., Pinjari, O.F. et al. Postmortem evidence of brain inflammatory markers in bipolar disorder: a systematic review. Mol Psychiatry 25, 94–113 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0448-7

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