Vitamin D levels, brain volume, and genetic architecture in patients with psychosis

Poster B38, Tuesday, October%209, 11:30%20am%20-%201:00%20pm, Essex%20Ballroom

Akiah Berg1,2, Kjetil N Jørgensen1,2,3, Mari Nerhus1,2,4, Lavinia Athanasiu1,2, Francesco Bettella1,2, Tiril P Gurholt1,2, Ingrid Agartz1,2,3, Ingrid Melle1,2; 1Norment, University of Oslo, 2Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway, 3Department of Psychiatric Research, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway, 4Akershus University Hospital, Division for Mental Health, Lørenskog, Norway

Lower vitamin D levels are found in people with schizophrenia and depressive disorders, and associated with neuroimaging abnormalities such as reduced brain volume. Reduced whole brain and increased ventricular volume are also systematically reported in schizophrenia. In this study we investigated the relationship between vitamin D levels and brain phenotypes in psychotic disorders, and assessed possible interactions with genetic variants that play a role in vitamin D concentration in the body. Our sample consisted of 84 psychosis patients (19 first episode psychoses and 18 first episode mania) and 101 healthy controls. We measured vitamin D levels as serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (S-25OHD). All participants were genotyped and neuroimaging conducted by structural magnetic resonance imaging. We observed a significant interaction effect of BSML marker (rs1544410) which mediated the association between patient status and both white matter volume (β 23603.3; 95% CI 2732.8 – 48708.6, p < .05) and whole brain volume (β 46670.6, 95% CI 8817.8 – 93888.3, p < .04). Vitamin D did not predict ventricular volume, which was associated with patient status (β 4423.3, 95% CI 1583.2 – 7267.8p < .002) and CYP24A1 marker (rs6013897) (β 2491.5, 95% CI 269.7 – 4978.5, p < .04). This study suggests that genetic variants associated with vitamin D concentration, and not current S-25OHD concentrations, influence white matter and whole brain volume in patients with psychosis. The present findings warrant replication in independent samples.

Topic Area: Neuroimaging

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