Research paperCognitive abilities in first-degree relatives of individuals with bipolar disorder
Section snippets
Method
This study was approved by the relevant Human Ethics Review Boards and abided by the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant before the study commenced.
Demographics
Table 1 displays the demographic and clinical descriptives for the sample. As expected, the BD group differed significantly from HCs and FDRs on both the MADRS and YMRS. No significant differences were found between groups on age, premorbid IQ or gender distribution.
Cognitive performance
There was a significant omnibus group effect for cognitive performance (Pillai's Trace = .34, F(14, 178) = 2.64, p = .002, η2 = .17), with BD patients showing the greatest impairment overall (M = 31.15, SD = 7.14), and FDRs (M =
Discussion
In the interests of establishing potential endophenotypic markers of BD, the current study explored cognitive abilities in unaffected FDRs of BD patients across a battery of cognitive tasks. FDRs showed significant impairment on the verbal learning domain when compared to HCs, which is partially consistent with previous literature that has indicated that FDRs exhibit cognitive impairment on measures of verbal memory as well as executive function and speed of processing when compared to HCs (
Role of funding source
Australian Rotary Health/Bipolar Expedition, the Helen McPherson Smith Trust and an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (to TVR 1088785).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Rotary Health/Bipolar Expedition, the Helen McPherson Smith Trust and the NHMRC. We also thank Mr Michael Reynolds for his assistance with data collection.
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2021, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :Therefore, it will impair the attainment of age-specific development, relationship, academic, and occupational outcomes and lead to poor social function (Grande et al., 2013; Macneil et al., 2011). Given the robust evidence that patients with bipolar disorder and their first-degree relatives show cognitive dysfunction (Grande et al., 2016a), many literatures indicate that cognition impairment may be a possible endophenotype or trait for BD (Calafiore et al., 2018; Miskowiak et al., 2017). Thus, cognitive deficits are considered present in the first episode of BD (Lima et al., 2018), but the specific mechanism is still unknown.
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