Neuropsychological characteristics of child and adolescent offspring of patients with bipolar disorder.
BACKGROUND
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mental disorder with a strong genetic component. The assessment of child and adolescent offspring of patients diagnosed with BD (BDoff) provides an opportunity to investigate vulnerability factors and the first abnormalities associated with the disorder. Previous literature in child and adolescent BDoff is scarce and controversial. However, some studies concur in identifying significant impairment in executive functions, memory and attention. The present study aims to compare global neuropsychological characteristics of child and adolescent offspring of patients with bipolar disorder with a group of offspring of parentswith no history of psychotic disorder, and to assess the influence of psychopathology on neuropsychological performance.


METHODS
This research was part of The Bipolar and Schizophrenia Young Offspring Study (BASYS). A group of BDoff (N= 90) and a group of offspring of parents with no history of psychotic disorder (CC) (N = 107) were assessed with a complete neuropsychological battery. Intellectual quotient, working memory, processing speed, verbal memory and learning, visual memory, attention and executive functions were included in the cognitive assessment.


RESULTS
BDoff showed significantly worse performance in processing speed and immediate recall of visual memory relative to CC. When the presence of any lifetime psychopathology was analysed, the results showed that belonging to the BDoff group was the main explicative factor for the scores obtained in both processing speed and visual memory immediate recall, regardless of the presence of psychopathology.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that processing speed and visualmemory should be taken into consideration in future research on vulnerability markers of BD.
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.. Electronic address: eserna@clinic.ub.es.
Elena
E
de la Serna
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.
Monserrat
M
Vila
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.
Vanessa
V
Sanchez-Gistau
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense, IiSGM, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain.
Dolores
D
Moreno
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.
Soledad
S
Romero
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.; Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica August Pi i Sunyer, IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain.
Gisela
G
Sugranyes
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.
Immaculada
I
Baeza
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense, IiSGM, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain.
Cloe
C
Llorente
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense, IiSGM, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain.
Elisa
E
Rodriguez-Toscano
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense, IiSGM, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain.
Teresa
T
Sánchez-Gutierrez
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Institut Clinic de Neurociències, Hospital Clínic Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.; Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica August Pi i Sunyer, IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain; Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, University of Barcelona, Spain.
Josefina
J
Castro-Fornieles
D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D001714:Bipolar Disorder; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests
Adolescent; Bipolar disorder; Neuropsychology; Risk