Clinical and neuropsychological characteristics of child and adolescent bipolar disorder.
BACKGROUND
The diagnosis of bipolar disorder in pre-pubertal populations remains difficult and often controversial. Consequently, the clinical and neuropsychological characteristics of mania in the child and adolescent years remain poorly defined. This review provides a clinical account of childhood and adolescent bipolar disorder and compares the neuropsychology and neuroanatomy of young BPD patients compared with adult BPD and childhood syndromes of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD).


METHODS
Literature review based on Pubmed searches.


RESULTS
Early- and adult-onset mania and BPD may share a common pattern of neurobiological characteristics despite developmental variations in the clinical presentation. In contrast, important distinctions are apparent between the child-onset syndromes of BPD, ADHD and CD, specifically at the neural level.


CONCLUSIONS
Disorders of affect dysregulation in childhood deserve closer neuroscientific and phenotypic scrutiny than given hitherto.
Kyte
Zoë A
ZA
Developmental Psychiatry Section, University of Cambridge, UK. zak21@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Carlson
Gabrielle A
GA
Goodyer
Ian M
IM
D000293:Adolescent; D017668:Age of Onset; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index