CACNA1C polymorphisms Impact Cognitive Recovery in Patients with Bipolar Disorder in a Six-week Open-label Trial

Cognitive impairments in bipolar patients deteriorate as the disorder progresses. Little is known about whether genetic risks impact cognitive recovery during the course from depression to remission. In this six-week open-label trial, we shed light on the impacts of six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the calcium voltage-gated channel subunit alpha1 C (CACNA1C) gene on cognitive recovery in 192 bipolar patients suffering a major depressive episode (MDE). The primary outcome measures were changes in a battery of neuropsychological tests following 6-week treatment. Carriers with rs10466907 GT genotype did not significantly improve their executive function total scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test after six weeks of treatment compared to the TT genotypes (β = −0.944, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = −1.482–−0.405). Moreover, during a MDE carriers with rs58619945 GG and GA genotypes performed significantly worse than those with AA genotype on the categories completed (p = 0.013 and p = 0.001), total errors (p = 0.039 and p = 0.009), and random errors (p = 0.055 and p = 0.014, respectively). Our data suggest that the tested CACNA1C SNPs may have impacts on cognitive recovery from depression.