Pharmacodynamics of serotonergic antidepressants differently influencing on serotonin reuptake receptors is poorly investigated.

To compare biochemical profiles at patients with anxious depression under treatment with tianeptine–serotonin reuptake enhancer and sertraline–selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

Platelet monoamine oxidase (MAO) and serum amine oxidase (AO) activities, level of middle mass endotoxic molecules (MMEM) and serum albumin functional properties – effective albumin concentration (EAC) and reserve of albumin binding (RAB) were investigated at 43 patients with anxious depression (F 32.1 and F 33.1). Clinical severity of illness was assessed using Hamilton Depression (21 items) and Hamilton Anxiety Scales. All patients were divided in two groups: group I (21 person) received tianeptine (37, 5 mg/day), group II – sertraline (50 mg/day).

It was established that patients with anxious depression were characterized by significant increase in MAO activity (by 95%) and the level of MMEM (by 86%) and significant decrease in AO activity (by 28%) and EAC and RAB parameters by 43 and 38%, respectively, in comparison with healthy volunteers. Under tianeptine and sertraline treatment, there were revealed contrary directed changes of all investigated parameters.

Results of study show that both tianeptine and sertraline are equally effective in treatment of anxious depression. Present biochemical investigation, however, suggest that underlying biochemical changes are more complete following tianeptine treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The aim of this study was to determining the cut-off for recurrent depressive episode to predict diagnostic conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar disorder by means of retrospective reviews of medical records.

The medical records of 250 patients with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder for at least 5 years were retrospectively reviewed for this study. We reviewed DSM-IV diagnosis and detailed clinical information at the index admission with assessments made every year after discharge to determining the cut-off for recurrent depressive episode to predict diagnostic conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar disorder.

Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated cut-off scores for recurrent depressive episode of more than three times (area under curve = 0.647, sensitivity = 0.435, specificity = 0.819, positive predictive value = 0.351, negative predictive value = 0.865).

These findings suggest that it could predict the best diagnostic conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar disorder when depressive episodes are recurrent more than three times. Based on these findings, it will be able to promote the accuracy of diagnosis and the efficiency of treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

To determine the frequency of first rank symptoms in manic patients.

The cross sectional study was done at psychiatric services of Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. One hundred and twenty manic patients were recruited from November 2014 to May 2015.FRS was assessed by administration of validated Urdu version of Present State Examination (PSE) tool.

The mean age of the patients was 37.62 + 12.51. The mean number of previous manic episode was 2.17 + 2.23. In total, 11.2% males and 30.6% females had FRS. This association of first rank symptoms with gender in patients of mania was found to be significant with a P value of 0.008. All-inclusive, 19.2% exhibited FRS in their course of illness, 43.5% had thought broadcasting, made feeling, impulses, action and somatic passivity, 39.1% had thought insertion, 30.4% had auditory perceptual distortion, and 17.4% had thought withdrawal. However, none displayed delusional perception.

The study confirms the presence of FRS in mania in both male and female, irrespective of the duration of current manic illness or previous number of manic episodes. A substantial difference was established between both the genders.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Patients affected by severe manic episode, often with delusional symptoms, are commonly treated with a combination of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics and other sedatives. The choice of a specific drug, dose and term is still debated.

A naturalistic study on a sample of 84 inpatients affected by acute severe mania treated with a combination therapy.

To compare efficacy and tolerability of haloperidol/risperidone/quetiapine in association with lithium and/or valproate.

Eighty-four bipolar inpatients affected by a manic episode according to DSM-5 criteria. Drugs administered according to our best practice. Clinical course weekly monitored with Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) for 4weeks. Extrapiramidal side effects (EPSE) monitored with Saint Hans Rating Scale (SHRS).

Twenty-five men (29.76%) and 59 women (70.24%); mean age 43.37 ± 13.58 years. Mean YMRS score T0 40.27 ± 9.04. Forty-one patients (48.81%) treated with haloperidol (3.4 mg/die); 16 (19.05%) with risperidone (4.3 mg/die); 27 (32.14%) with quetiapine (438 mg/die). The 3 groups showed no difference regarding clinical characteristics and YMRS basal scores. Chi2 analysis confirmed an higher response rate (50% of reduction of YMRS final score compared to T0) with haloperidol (χ2 = 14.88; P = 0.00). The repeated-measures model analysis showed a significant decrease (P < 0.05) in YMRS scores in haloperidol vs. risperidone vs. quetiapine patients for all time points from second week. No statistical difference for EPSE was found.

We suggest that haloperidol could be advisable in the treatment of severe mania, with rapid efficacy, even with low doses. Occurrence of EPSE was not considerable during the acute treatment. Studies with a larger sample size, randomization, fixed doses, double blind design are needed.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Geriatric-onset of a first-episode mania is a rare psychiatric condition, which may be caused by a heterogeneous group of non-psychiatric conditions. To confirm late-onset bipolar disorder (LOBD) diagnosis, secondary-mania causes should be ruled out.

To provide a comprehensive review reporting prevalence, features, differential diagnosis, comorbidity and treatment of LOBD.

The literature was systematically reviewed by online searching using PubMed®. The authors selected review papers with the words “Late-onset mania” and/or “Late-onset bipolar” in the title and/or abstract published in the last 10 years.

With population ageing, LOBD is becoming a more prevalent disorder. Clinical presentation may be atypical and confounding, making the diagnosis not always obvious. Several non-psychiatric conditions must be considered in an elderly patient presenting with new-onset mania, namely stroke, dementia, hyperthyroidism or infection causing delirium. Only then LOBD diagnosis may be done, making that an exclusion diagnosis. Comorbidities, such as hypertension or renal insufficiency are often present in the elderly and must be taken into account when choosing a mood stabilizer.

LOBD remains a complex and relatively understudied disorder with important diagnostic and therapeutic implications. This diagnosis must be kept in mind for every elderly patient presenting with new-onset mania. Further investigations could contribute to a better understanding of LOBD etiopathogenesis and to set out better treatment guidelines.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

To assess the efficacy of an innovate telemedicine psyeducational treatment (TPT) based on a psychoeducational intervention (21 sessions) with an additional support through telemedicine which has 12 videos versus treatment as usual (TAU) based on psychiatry reviews. Specifically, the objective was to evaluate patients’ efficacy of psyeducational treatment with telemedicine (TPT) in the fuctionalitity, depressive symptoms and manic symptoms.

Thirty-eight patients with bipolar disorder were included in the study and randomly distributed in the two groups. The telemedine treatment is performed through a www.puedoser.es web platform provided by Astra Zeneca. In the web platform is available forums, emails and digital-course with the sessions worked as a reminder. In order to assess the effectiveness of treatments, FAST scale was administered at baseline and 6 months after the intervention. To obtain the results we used coparative data analysis.

In patients, we found a low daily functionality. The main issues were: interpersonal cognitive area (t = –2.611; P = 0.014) and interpersonal-area (t = –2.617; P = 0.014). We found, at baseline, that TPT group had worse overall results in daily functionality (t = –2.876; P = 0.008). After intervention, there is an improvement in the daily functionality of the TPT group. This improvement occurred in cognitive area (z = –3.24; P < 0.001), leisure area (z = –1.85; P = 0.065) and interpersonal area (z = –1.72; P = 0.086).

The psychoeducational program combined with telemedicine shows to be more effective than TAU in the improvement of general patient functioning in bipolar disorder patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The SIMPLe project was designed with the aim of developing a smartphone application (i.e. app) to monitor and psychoeducate subjects with bipolar disorder through highly personalized messages from both passive and active data. The project was based on a face-to-face group program, which has an increasing scientific evidence of its efficacy and cost-effectiveness reducing bipolar disorder relapses.

An initial feasibility study was conducted to evaluate the usability and satisfaction of an Android version of the SIMPLe app 1.0.

The SIMPLe feasibility study was conducted from March 2015 to June 2015. The participation in the study was offered to a consecutive sample of adult patients diagnosed of bipolar disorder I, II or NOS (not otherwise specified) attending the outpatient mental health clinic of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain.

The participation in the study was offered to 72 stable bipolar patients. Forty-three subjects were enrolled in the study. Since the day the patients were enrolled in the study, the rate of completed tests was 0.74 per day and 1.13 per week. Nine emergency alerts were received through the application and notified to the reference patients’ psychiatrists. Ninety-five percent of the initial participants remained actively using the app and no relapses were identified during the 3 months of the study.

These preliminary results suggest a high feasibility of the SIMPLE app based on the rates of tasks completed and retention.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Most of the studies have indicated that there have been neurocognitive impairments especially in the domains of executive functions, attention, verbal and working memory among euthymic patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD-I). However, there has been limited research investigating neurocognitive functioning in euthymic patients with BD- II.

Aim of this study was to investigate neurocognitive functions in euthymic BD-II patients. Our hypothesis was that euthymic BD-II patients would have neurocognitive impairments in the domains of executive functions, attention, verbal and working memory.

Euthymic BD-II patients (n = 37) and healthy controls (HC) (n = 35) were compared in terms of their neurocognitive functioning in the domains of executive functions assesed by the number of perseverative errors, non-perseverative errors and category completed on the Wisconsin Cart Sorting Test (WCST); working memory assessed by Auditory Consonant Trigrams (ACT); immediate verbal memory assessed by the Logical Memory subscale of the Wechsler Memory Scale I (WMS I) and attention assesed by Stroop Colour-Word Interference Test (SCWIT). Euthymic state was confirmed by the low scores both on Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Young Mania Rating Scale.

Significant differences were found between two groups in terms of WCST non-perseverative errors (Z = 3.8, P < 0.01) and category completed subtests (Z = 3.8, P < 0.01), ACT (t = 2.97, P < 0.01) WMSI (Z = 2.4, P = 0.01), SCWIT (t = 3.52, P < 0.01) performances.

Our study indicated that euthymic BD-II patients had poorer performance on the domains of executive functions, attention, working memory and verbal memory than the HC group. But future studies with large samples are needed to support our results.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Several studies have analyzed the influence of bipolar disorder (BD) related to many kinds of functioning. Even if it is obvious that patients in relapse have poor quality of live (QoL), what's about it in interictal phases with subthreshold symptoms?

To study the potential relationship between QoL and subthreshold symptoms in bipolar I patients in remission.

To evaluate the above relationship, we hypothesized that subsyndromic BD phases can be related to worse subjectively QoL.

This was a cross-sectional study. Forty-four BD patients were enrolled. The subthreshold symptoms were evaluated by Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). Patients with HDRS lower than 7 and YMSR lower than 6 were the successful applicants. Then, we run the Tunisian version of SF-36 to measure the QoL.

Twenty-seven men and seventeen women with an average age of 39.3 years were selected. Age of beginning of BD was 31.5 years and patients were in relapse since 1.56 years. The HDRS's average score was 2.73. Twenty patients (45.5%) have an HDRS upper than 4. The YMRS's average score was 2.25 and twenty-nine BD's patients have a score between 1 and 6. The overall average score at SF-36 scale were 64.2 and 25% of BD patient with subthreshold symptoms had a poor QoL.

Subsyndromic interictal phases affect the QoL of BD patients and it's necessary to introduce therapy adapted according to troubles in order to improve patient's quality of life and functioning.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

It is important to make an early and effective intervention from the first bipolar episode. The presence of depressive symptoms in the course of a manic episode could influence negatively the evolution and the prognosis of the patient. Inflammation and oxidative stress are also related with functionality.

To explore the relationship between depressive symptoms during a first episode of mania, inflammatory parameters and patient functionality during the follow-up.

We included in the study 92 are patients with a first manic episode and 92 matched healthy controls. We compared 13 inflammatory/oxidative stress parameters measured at baseline (TFNα, IL6, PGE2, MCP1, TBARS, NO2, SOD, CAT, GSHTOT, GSSG, GSHfree, GPx, TAS) between both groups. Between patients, 46 presented pure mania (PM) (no depressive symptoms) and 46 mixed mania (MM) (with depressive symptoms). We explored the influence of inflammatory factors in functionality, exploring differences between PM and MM. To measure patients’ general functioning one year after illness onset, we used the Functional Assessment Short Test (FAST).

We found significant differences in TFNα, MCP1 and TBARS (higher in patients) and in SOD, GSHtot, GSSG, GSHfree, GPx and TAS levels (lower in patients). Only In MM group, there was a significant influence of SOD and GSHfree in FAST scores suggesting that a higher antioxidant levels at baseline the patient functionality improves one year after.

Some parameters of oxidative stress at baseline are related with patient's functionality one year after the first episode of mania, but only when mania debuts with depressive symptons simultaneously.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

In spite of more studies dedicated to the topic of sexual disorders among schizophrenic patients or to the sexual effects of antipsychotics and antidepressants, few studies entangle broadly the issue of sexual attitudes and behaviors of bipolar patients, due partly to the heterogeneity of the disorder and the variety of episodes, and treatments.

To establish if special sexual patterns are specific to depressive or manic episodes and if the sexual disorders are related to the severity of the mood episodes.

To compare depressive, manic, and matched controls regarding their sexuality.

The current study is an observational cross sectional study, carried out on 173 women, among them 112 bipolar, diagnosed according to ICD-10 criteria (81 depressive, and 31 manic), and 61 controls. All subjects fulfilled the Sexual Disorders Interview (SDI), Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and to bipolar patients BDI, YMRS have been administered.

Female bipolar patients were significant less sexual active than controls, depressive women being less interested in sexuality than manic patients; there were not significant differences between the two patients’ samples regarding the frequency of sexual intercourse, degree of psychopathology. Sexual problems on FSFI were detected in 75% of bipolar patients, both bipolar groups emphasizing difficulties in arousal, lubrication and sexual satisfaction.

The issue of sexual problems in bipolar female patients is delicate to investigate and often neglected, being difficult to ascertain to the mood disorder itself or to different treatments the patients have been exposed to, or to stigma.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Management of bipolar disorder is limited by absence of laboratory test. While alterations related to multiple biological pathways have been found in bipolar disorder, findings have not translated into clinically applicable biomarkers. We previously found promise for a combined gene expression biomarker. The combination of gene expression and proteomic biomarkers could have potential as a meaningful clinical test.

To identify a composite biomarker based on multiple potential peripheral biomarkers related to neuroplasticity, inflammation and oxidative stress, both on a proteomic and gene expression level.

To test the ability of a composite biomarker to discriminate between bipolar disorder patients and healthy control subjects and between affective states in bipolar disorder patients.

mRNA expression of a set of 19 candidate genes and protein levels of immune markers and neurotrophic factors were measured in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and combined with urinary levels of oxidized nucleosides of 37 rapid cycling bipolar disorder patients in different affective states (depression, mania and euthymia) during a 6–12-month period and in 40 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects. A composite measure was constructed in the first half of the sample and independently validated in the second half of the sample. The composite measure was evaluated using ROC curves and by calculating sensitivity and specificity.

Statistical analysis is ongoing. Results will be presented at the congress.

A peripheral composite biomarker based on multiple biological pathways on both proteomic and gene expression levels may have potential as a clinically applicable biomarker.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Guidelines for the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder discourage the use of antidepressants chiefly on grounds of unproven efficacy and risk if mania for bipolar I. However, for patients stabilised on an antidepressant, naturalistic data support its continued use.

The aim is to describe use of antidepressants in patients with bipolar disorder in remission seen at an outpatient clinic in Singapore.

The case notes of patients with bipolar disorder in remission, seen by psychiatrist in an outpatient psychiatric clinic in a general hospital unit from December 2014 to March 2015 were studied. Data describing the age, sex, type of bipolar disorder and psychotropic medications prescribed, was obtained.

Forty-two patients were included, of which 13 (31%) were male and 29 (69%) were female. The age ranged from 23 to 82, with mean age of 47 years. Of these 17 (40%) had bipolar I and 25 (60%) had bipolar II. Antidepressant use for maintenance treatment was present in 19 out of 42 (45%) of these patients; of these 7 out of 17 (41%) were bipolar 1 and 12 out of 25 (48%) were bipolar II. Eighteen out of the 19 (95%) patients who were prescribed antidepressants were on combination treatment with mood stabilizers. Antidepressant type included SSRI (37%), NDRI (37%), SNRI (10.5%), TCA (10.5%), NASSA (5%).

Almost half of patients with bipolar disorder managed in an individual practice were on antidepressants together with mood stabilisers. They remained in remission with combination treatment, which did not seem to jeopardise their condition.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Misidentification phenomena and Capgras Syndrome (CS) occur in different psychiatric (psychotic or major affective illnesses) and neurological (traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, neurosyphilis, etc.) disorders [1,2]. The aim of this report is to redefine dissociative spectrum dimensions inside CS and misidentification syndromes in patients with Bipolar Disorder (BD).

Five inpatients were assessed with the SCID-P, SCID-DER, DSS, HRSD, YMRS, a neurological and general medicine review, a first-level brain imaging examination (CT and/or MRI). We conducted a systematic literature review (PubMed, Embase, PsychInfo) using the key terms “Capgras Syndrome” and “Misidentificaition”.

All patients were diagnosed with type-I BD and had concomitant CS that presented with misidentification phenomena in the context of psychotic mixed state. They reported high scores for autopsychic and affective depersonalization symptoms as well as high SCI-DER (mean = 24.4) and DSS (mean = 13) total scores.

To our knowledge in literature, there are not studies that evaluated dissociative spectrum symptoms in CS in BD. This condition of identity and self fragmentation could be the key to shedding light on the interconnection between affective and non-affective psychotic disorders from schizophrenia to BD, and may underscore the possible validity of the concept of the unitary psychosis proposed by Griesinger [3–5]. Further research is warranted to replicate our clinical and qualitative observations and, in general, quantitative studies in large samples followed up over time are needed. Methodological limitations are considered.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Although early interventions in individuals with bipolar disorder may reduce the associated personal and economic burden, the neurobiologic markers of enhanced risk are unknown.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the existence of neurobiological abnormalities in individuals with genetic risk for developing bipolar disorder (HR)

A literature search was performed in the available scientific literature on the subject study object, by searching MEDLINE.

There were 37 studies included in this systematic review. The overall sample for the systematic review included 1258 controls and 996 HR individuals. No significant differences were detected between HR individuals and controls in the selected ROIs (regions of interest): striatum, amygdala, hippocampus, pituitary and frontal lobe. The HR group showed increased grey matter volume compared with patients with established bipolar disorder. The HR individuals showed increased neural response in the left superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and left insula compared with controls. The overall results found no significant differences between individuals at high genetic risk and controls since the magnitude of the association as corresponds to an OR < 1.5 (low association)

There is accumulating evidence for the existence of neurobiologic abnormalities in individuals at genetic risk for bipolar disorder at various scales of investigation. The etiopathogenesis of bipolar disorder will be better elucidated by future imaging studies investigating larger and more homogeneous samples and using longitudinal designs to dissect neurobiologic abnormalities that are underlying traits of the illness from those related to psychopathologic states, such as episodes of mood exacerbation or pharmacologic treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Bipolar disorder is a leading cause of hospitalization in psychiatric hospitals. It is known that early detection of bipolar disorder is associated with a better prognosis.

The aim of this study is to conduct a demographic analysis of patients hospitalized for bipolar disorder in a single center between 2003 to 2014.

Retrospective cohort study of 1230 patients admitted with bipolar disorder diagnosis from 2003 to 2014 at Centre Assistencial Emili Mira i López of Parc Salut Mar of Barcelona. We divided the study in two periods: 2003–2008 and 2009–2014. We analyzed the following variables: frequency of admissions, age, sex and days of hospital stay, comparing both periods. Chi-square test for categorical variables and Student t test for quantitative variables were applied.

The mean ages at the first and second period are 52 and 47, respectively (P < 0.001). There are no significant differences in sex and days of hospitalization. The frequency of admissions on the first and third trimesters is higher than in the second and fourth, although the differences are not statistically significant.

Despite the large number of patients in the study, there are limitations, such as being a retrospective study and not being adjusted for confounding factors. The average age of patients in the second period is lower than in the first. This could suggest an improvement in early detection of bipolar disorder in the last years. Further research is needed to confirm this hypothesis.

LG is funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III(CM14/00111).

Most studies selected euthymic patients with bipolar disorder in inter-episodic phase according to clinical remission criteria at least between 1 and 6 months. However, possible differences can exist in the course of clinical symptoms in bipolar patients related to the duration of clinical remission.

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical status of bipolar patients after 6 months of clinical remission.

We performed a cross-sectional study of bipolar outpatients in clinical remission for at least 6 months. Bipolar Depression Rating Scale (BDRS), Young Mania Rating scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scale, Visual Analogic Scales (VAS) evaluated cognitive impairment were used to assess residual symptomatology of patients. Multivariate analysis (MANCOVA) was conducted for analysing possible differences between 3 groups of patients according to their duration of clinical remission (< 6 months–1 year, < 1 year–3 years, < 3 years–5 years).

A total of 525 patients were included into the study. The multivariate analysis indicated a significant effect of the duration of clinical remission on the different residual symptoms (Pillai's trace: F 4.48, P < 0.001). The duration of clinical remission was associated with the significant improvement of the BDRS total score (P = 0.013), the PSQI total score (P < 0.001) and the cognitive VAS total score (P < 0.001)

These results support a possible improvement of residual symptoms according to the duration of clinical remission in bipolar patients. Any definition of euthymia should specify the duration criteria.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

A large number of studies have found that patients with bipolar disorders have a poor performance in tasks assessing social cognition.

The present study aimed to investigate whether euthymic bipolar patients (EBP) have a dysfunction in emotion processing when compared to controls. An additional objective was to determine whether there is association between emotion processing and psychosocial functioning.

A sample of 53 EBP and 53 healthy controls matched for age, gender, education level and premorbid intelligence were studied. All subjects were assessed using the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and two additional executive function measures: the Trail Making Test–Part B and the Stroop Test. Emotion processing was examined using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Psychosocial functioning was assessed using the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale and the Functional Assessment Short Test (FAST).

For the MSCEIT, EBP obtained lower total scores (P = 0.001), experiential area scores (P = 0.012), strategic area scores (P = 0.000), perceiving emotions branch scores (P = 0.008), understanding emotions branch scores (P = 0.014) and managing emotions branch scores (P = 0.000) than controls. There were no significant differences between groups for the using emotions branch (P = 0.113). In addition, partial correlations controlling for sub-clinical psychopathology in EBP showed the existence of a significant correlation of MSCEIT total score and MSCEIT strategic area score with FAST total score.

EBP exhibit deficits in several areas of emotion processing. Performance in emotion processing tasks is associated with social functioning in these patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Deficient prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle response, indicating sensorimotor gating deficits, has been reported in schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

The present study aimed to assess sensorimotor gating deficits in euthymic bipolar patients. Furthermore, we analysed the relationships between PPI and clinical and cognitive measures.

PPI was measured in 64 euthymic bipolar patients and in 64 control subjects matched for age, gender, education level and smoking status. Clinical characteristics and level of functioning were assessed in all participants using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) and Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST). Cognition was evaluated using the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and the Stroop Test as an additional measure of executive function.

Compared with controls, patients with bipolar disorder exhibited PPI deficits at 60- and 120-milliseconds prepulse-pulse intervals. Among patients with bipolar disorder, PPI was correlated with the social cognition domain of the MCCB. PPI was not significantly correlated with other clinical or neurocognitive variables in either group.

Our data suggest that PPI deficit is a neurobiological marker in euthymic bipolar disorder, which is associated with social cognition but not with other clinical, functional or cognitive measures.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Several studies suggested the involvement of sensory perception in emotional processes and major affective disorders. Similarly, cognitive capacities and coping strategies are reported to influence quality of life of patients with unipolar and bipolar disorders.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the nature of the association between sensory processing patterns, coping strategies, and quality of life among patients with major affective disorders.

The study aimed to compare unipolar/bipolar patients concerning sensory processing, coping strategies and quality of life (QOL); examine correlations between sensory processing and QOL; investigate the relative contribution of socio-demographic characteristics, sensory processing, and coping strategies to the prediction of QOL.

Two hundred and sixty-seven participants, aged 16–85 years (mean = 53.6 ± 15.7), 157 diagnosed with unipolar major depressive disorder and 110 with bipolar disorder type I and type II completed the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile, Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced, and Short Form 12 Health Survey 2.

The unipolar and bipolar groups did not differ concerning sensory processing, coping strategies, and QOL. Sensory processing patterns correlated with QOL independently of the mediation by coping strategies. Correlations between low registration, sensory sensitivity, sensation avoidance, and reduced QOL were found more frequently in unipolar patients than bipolar patients. Elevated physical QOL was mainly predicted by lower age and lower sensory sensitivity whereas elevated mental QOL was mainly predicted by coping strategies.

Future studies should further investigate the impact of sensory processing and coping strategies on patients’ QOL to enhance adaptive and functional behaviors related to affective disturbances.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.