Grant: Project Grant

During the past two decades, research has emphasized the link between mood disorders in general, bipolar disorder (BD) in particular, and cardiovascular disease. BD has been shown to be associated with one of the highest rates of premature death due to coronary artery disease. A lot of this research has focused on men, even though excess death rates from cardiovascular disease in individuals with BD are higher in women than in men. The objective of the proposed study is to understand the determinants of sex-related differences in cardiovascular morbidity in BD, with the goal of developing prediction tools that support prevention. Approach: We plan to collect and integrate biological and clinical data to predict autonomic imbalance (using heart rate variability) and cardiovascular risk in men and women with BD. In addition to controlling for lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking, physical activity), which are linked to both cardiovascular disease and BD. Our analysis will focus on two innovative measures that we posit are mediators of sex-related differences in cardiovascular morbidity in BD: (i) a polygenic risk score (i.e., a biological measure) and (ii) Illness Burden Index ("IBI", i.e., a clinical measure). Relevance: By integrating genomic, physiological, and clinical data, we aim to gain a better understanding of the sex-related differences in cardiovascular morbidity in BD, and thus enable personalized predictive algorithms to decrease cardiovascular morbidity in men and women with BD.