Face-brain correlates as potential sex-specific biomarkers for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

• Published in: Psychiatry research 2024-09, Vol.339, p.116027, Article 116027
• Main Authors: Hostalet, Noemí, González, Alejandro, Salgado-Pineda, Pilar, Gonzàlez-Colom, Rubèn, Canales-Rodríguez, Erick J, Aguirre, Candibel, Guerrero-Pedraza, Amalia, Llanos-Torres, María, Salvador, Raymond, Pomarol-Clotet, Edith, Sevillano, Xavier, Martínez-Abadías, Neus, Fatjó-Vilas, Mar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomarkers; Bipolar disorder; Facial morphology; Geometric morphometrics; Neurodevelopment; Schizophrenia
• ISSN: 0165-1781; 1872-7123; 1872-7123
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2024.116027

•Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are associated with subtle facial shape differences.•Geometric morphometrics reveals sex-specific facial patterns in psychotic disorders.•Face and brain combined data emerge as potential biomarkers for psychotic disorders. Given the shared ectodermal origin and integrated development of the face and the brain, facial biomarkers emerge as potential candidates to assess vulnerability for disorders in which neurodevelopment is compromised, such as schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). The sample comprised 188 individuals (67 SZ patients, 46 BD patients and 75 healthy controls (HC)). Using a landmark-based approach on 3D facial reconstructions, we quantified global and local facial shape differences between SZ/BD patients and HC using geometric morphometrics. We also assessed correlations between facial and brain cortical measures. All analyses were performed separately by sex. Diagnosis explained 4.1 % - 5.9 % of global facial shape variance in males and females with SZ, and 4.5 % - 4.1 % in BD. Regarding local facial shape, we detected 43.2 % of significantly different distances in males and 47.4 % in females with SZ as compared to HC, whereas in BD the percentages decreased to 35.8 % and 26.8 %, respectively. We detected that brain area and volume significantly explained 2.2 % and 2 % of facial shape variance in the male SZ - HC sample. Our results support facial shape as a neurodevelopmental marker for SZ and BD and reveal sex-specific pathophysiological mechanisms modulating the interplay between the brain and the face.