Neuroimaging Changes in the Sensorimotor Network and Visual Network in Bipolar Disorder and Their Relationship with Genetic Characteristics

<b>Objective</b>: Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) may exhibit common and significant changes in brain activity across different networks. Our aim was to investigate the changes in functional connectivity (FC) within different brain networks in BD, as well as their neuroimaging homogeneity, heterogeneity, and genetic variation. <b>Methods</b>: In this study, we analyzed the seed points and whole-brain FC of the sensorimotor network (SMN) and visual network (VN) in 83 healthy controls (HCs) and 77 BD patients, along with their genetic neuroimaging associations. <b>Results</b>: The results showed that, compared to HCs, BD patients exhibited abnormal FC in the SMN and VN brain regions. However, after three months of treatment, there were no significant differences in SMN and VN FC in the brain regions of the patients compared to pre-treatment levels. Enrichment analysis indicated that genes associated with changes in FC were shared among different SMN seed points, but no shared genes were found among VN seed points. <b>Conclusions</b>: In conclusion, changes in SMN FC may serve as a potential neuroimaging marker in BD patients. Our genetic neuroimaging association analysis may help to comprehensively understand the molecular mechanisms underlying FC changes in BD patients.