BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Neuroenergetics and Brain Health
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1587011
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Neuroenergetics and Brain Health: 2024-2025View all 4 articles
Lactate flux dysfunction in bipolar disorder through preliminary ultra-high field 7T MRSI data during task and rest
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States
- 2University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
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Introduction: Symptoms of bipolar disorder (BD) may be characterized as disruption in energy metabolism, and measures of neural energy availability may be a mechanistic marker of BD. Lactate, the endpoint of glycolysis, has been a poorly understood neural energy source that may contribute to the neural dysfunction underlying BD.Methods: We aimed to test precuneus lactate availability during an emotion processing task and during rest, in a sample of adolescents with well characterized pediatric onset BD (n=17) versus healthy adolescents (n=8) using 7 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Imaging (MRSI), mean age = 19.2(3.8).Results: In this small sample we showed the differences between precuneus lactate availability during an emotion processing task and rest (e.g., lactate flux) was greater for BD (mean=0.014 (.041)) than healthy (mean= -0.033(.028)), t(17)=2.64, p=.017, Cohen's d=1.3, Bayes factor10 =3.528. Additionally, we showed this greater lactate availability (task -rest) difference in BD, especially in those characterized by lower precuneus lactate availability during rest, was trend related to elevated depression scores, r=0.459, p=0.055, Bayes factor10 =1.617.Discussion: These results suggest for the first time, using ultra-high field strength MRSI with high signal to noise, that lactate flux is dysfunctional in well characterized BD. Our findings highlight the importance of lactate as a mechanistic marker of BD that may be used for developing novel treatment options.
Keywords: Lactate, Neural metabolism, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Precuneus
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 07 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bertocci and Diler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michele A Bertocci, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States
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