TY - JOUR
T1 - Negative emotion interference during a synonym matching task in pediatric bipolar disorder with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
AU - Passarotti, Alessandra M.
AU - Fitzgerald, Jacklynn M.
AU - Sweeney, John A.
AU - Pavuluri, Mani N.
PY - 2013/5
Y1 - 2013/5
N2 - This study examined whether processing of emotional words impairs cognitive performance in acutely ill patients with pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), with or without comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), relative to healthy controls (HC). Forty youths with PBD without ADHD, 20 youths with PBD and ADHD, and 29 HC (mean age = 12.97 ± 3.13) performed a Synonym Matching task, where they decided which of two probe words was the synonym of a target word. The three words presented on each trial all had the same emotional valence, which could be negative, positive, or neutral. Relative to HC both PBD groups exhibited worse accuracy for emotional words relative to neutral ones. This effect was greater with negative words and observed regardless of whether PBD patients had comorbid ADHD. In the PBD group without ADHD, manic symptoms correlated negatively with accuracy for negative words, and positively with reaction time (RT) for all word types. Our findings suggest a greater disruptive effect of emotional valence in both PBD groups relative to HC, reflecting the adverse effect of altered emotion processing on cognitive function in PBD. Future studies including an ADHD group will help clarify how ADHD symptoms may affect emotional interference independently of PBD.
AB - This study examined whether processing of emotional words impairs cognitive performance in acutely ill patients with pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), with or without comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), relative to healthy controls (HC). Forty youths with PBD without ADHD, 20 youths with PBD and ADHD, and 29 HC (mean age = 12.97 ± 3.13) performed a Synonym Matching task, where they decided which of two probe words was the synonym of a target word. The three words presented on each trial all had the same emotional valence, which could be negative, positive, or neutral. Relative to HC both PBD groups exhibited worse accuracy for emotional words relative to neutral ones. This effect was greater with negative words and observed regardless of whether PBD patients had comorbid ADHD. In the PBD group without ADHD, manic symptoms correlated negatively with accuracy for negative words, and positively with reaction time (RT) for all word types. Our findings suggest a greater disruptive effect of emotional valence in both PBD groups relative to HC, reflecting the adverse effect of altered emotion processing on cognitive function in PBD. Future studies including an ADHD group will help clarify how ADHD symptoms may affect emotional interference independently of PBD.
KW - ADHD
KW - Attention bias
KW - Bipolar
KW - Emotion
KW - Interference
KW - Youths
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877145626&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84877145626&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S135561771300012X
DO - 10.1017/S135561771300012X
M3 - Article
C2 - 23398984
AN - SCOPUS:84877145626
SN - 1355-6177
VL - 19
SP - 601
EP - 612
JO - Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society
JF - Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society
IS - 5
ER -