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Individuals at high risk for bipolar hypomania have increased access to negative specific memories, say UK researchers who suggest that encouraging positive memory recall may benefit bipolar disorder patients.
Previous studies have indicated that bipolar disorder patients recall more overgeneral than specific autobiographical memories, particularly during depressive episodes. It has also been hypothesized that the opposite pattern may occur during mania/hypomania.
To investigate further, Steven Jones, from Lancaster University, and colleagues studied 38 individuals, of whom 21 were categorized as at high risk and 17 as at low risk of hypomania on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS). The participants were also administered the Internal States Scale (ISS) and the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT).
The team reports in the journal Memory that there were no demographic differences between high-risk and low-risk participants. However, high-risk individuals had significantly higher scores on the ISS subscales of perceived conflict and activation.
On the AMT, there were no significant differences between the overall number of memories recalled between high- and low-risk participants in response to cue words, and no differences in the number of pleasant memories recalled.
Interestingly, high-risk individuals recalled significantly more unpleasant specific, as opposed to general, memories in response to cue words than low-risk individuals, at 4.00 versus 3.21.
The team concludes: “By focusing on modifying the schema that are produced within each phase of bipolar disorder, more functional cognitive processes could be encouraged.
“For example, by promoting the retrieval of specific positive memories and theintegration of negative memories into the autobiographical knowledge base, a more adaptive focus of attention could be endorsed, which may help to prevent and reduce the severity of episodes.”
MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a trading division of Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd; 2009
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Patients with bipolar disorder are at increased risk for behavioral addictions, researchers have found.
They reported at the 18th European Congress of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, that these behavioral addictions appear to be linked to higher levels of impulsivity and character immaturity.
M Di Nicola and colleagues from Catholic University Medical School in Rome, Italy, assessed behavioral addictions in 158 outpatients with bipolar disorder and 200 mentally healthy individuals.
The main behavioral addictions assessed were pathologic gambling, compulsive shopping, sexual, internet, work, and physical exercise addictions.
The researchers also administered the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (TCI-R) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11) to see whether impulsivity and personality dimensions were associated with behavioral addictions in the patients.
They found that 33% of bipolar disorder patients had at least one behavioral addiction, compared with just 13% of controls.
The most common behavioral addictions, for which bipolar disorder patients scored significantly highly, were pathologic gambling, compulsive buying, and sexual and work addictions.
Bipolar disorder patients with behavioral addictions tended to have lower levels of impulsivity than those without such addictions, while levels of the personality dimensions self-directness and cooperativeness were significantly higher.
Di Nicola concluded: “To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the prevalence of behavioral addictions in bipolar disorder showing a significant association of these disorders.”
MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a trading division of Springer Healthcare Limited. © Springer Healthcare Ltd; 2010
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Variations in the D-amino acid oxidase activator gene (DAOA) are linked to the development of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, although they account for only a part of genetic susceptibility, UK study findings suggest.
Previous studies have associated the DAOA/G30 locus or the neighboring region of chromosome 13q33.2 with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, while four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 12q24.11 have been linked to schizophrenia. However, the results have been conflicting.
Hugh Gurling, from University College London, and colleagues therefore genotyped 431 schizophrenia patients, 303 bipolar disorder patients, and 442 ancestrally matched controls with no history of mental disorder.
All participants were genotyped for 11 SNPs at the DAOA locus, with schizophrenia patients and controls also genotyped for three SNPs at the D-amino acid oxidase gene (DAO) locus on chromosome 12.
The results, published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Functions, reveal that the SNP rs3918342 (M23) at the DAOA locus was significantly associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and both conditions combined.
There was a trend toward association with schizophrenia for the SNPs rs3916967 (M14) and rs1421292 (M24), with the latter also marginally significantly associated with both conditions combined.
The team also found that there was a haplotypic association with schizophrenia for the markers rs778293 (M22), rs3918342 (M23), and rs1421292 (M42), with alleles G, T, A increasing the risk for schizophrenia at an estimated frequency of 1.8% in controls and 3.6% in patients. None of the three DOA SNPs were associated with schizophrenia.
The team concludes: “Our findings point to a role for DAOA in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, it is evident that this locus can account for only a small proportion of genetic susceptibility to these disorders.”
MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009
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