The aim of the study is to characterize neurocognitive deficits in a euthymic BD sample.
Methods: Seventeen stable BD outpatients (DSM-IV) were assessed by neuropsychological batteries tapping attention, processing speed, verbal and visual memory and executive functions. The neuropsychological evaluation was carried out by a trained neuropsychologist who was blind to the diagnostic and clinical features of patients. The sample consisted in 9 women, 11 BDI and 6 BDII, aged 18-69 and a media of 37 years-old, 13 years of illness media, and 71% achieved college/university education. All patients were euthymic (HAM-D and YMRS) and had no medication changes for the last 3 months.
Spearman correlations were carried out to estimate the association between neuropsychological performance and some clinical features.
Results: patients with higher diagnostic delay performed worse in the episodic memory
(p = 0.0747).
Patients with higher number of admissions due to BD, performed worse in cognitive flexibility
(p = 0.0004), verbal episodic memory (p = 0.0378), and premorbid IQ (p = 0.0179).
Patients with a longer duration of admission performed worse in cognitive flexibility (p = 0.0030), and executive functioning (p = 0.0018).
Patients with longer duration of depressive and manic episodes performed worse in working memory (p = 0.0308) and in attention and executive functions (p= 0.0324), respectively.
Conclusions: The main finding of this preliminary study is that euthymic bipolar patients display worsening of neuropsychological performance associated with some known clinical features affecting functional outcome.