Am J Psychiatry 1984; 141:253-256
Copyright © 1984 by American Psychiatric Association
Clinical correlates of lateral ventricular enlargement in bipolar affective disorder
GD Pearlson, DJ Garbacz, RH Tompkins, HS Ahn, DF Gutterman, AE Veroff and JR DePaulo
The presence of lateral ventricular enlargement in some manic- depressive
subjects, as assessed by ventricular-brain ratios (VBRs), has been
reported. A study of 27 bipolar patients and 27 individually matched normal
controls confirmed that finding. Bipolar patients had significantly larger
VBRs than did controls. Clinical measures associated with the presence of
ventricular enlargement in the bipolar patients included more frequent
hospitalizations and histories of persistent unemployment. Other measures
of illness severity or social deterioration were not significantly
associated with large VBR.
