Levothyroxine effects on depressive symptoms and limbic glucose metabolism in bipolar disorder: a randomized, placebo-controlled positron emission tomography study.

ABSTRACT: Adding supraphysiologic doses of levothyroxine (L-T4) to standard treatment for bipolar depression shows promise, but the mechanisms underlying clinical improvement are unknown. In a previous pilot study, L-T4 treatment reduced depression scores and activity within the anterior limbic network. Here we extended this work in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of patients with bipolar depression. Cerebral glucose metabolism was assessed with positron emission tomography and [F-18]fluorodeoxyglucose before and after 6 weeks of treatment with L-T4 (n=15) or placebo (n=10) in 12 volumes of interest (VOIs): the bilateral thalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, dorsal striatum and ventral striatum, and midline cerebellar vermis and subgenual cingulate cortex. Radioactivity in the VOIs,

SUBMITTER: Bauer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4790155 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature