title: Social cognition in first-degree relatives of patients with bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis.
abstract: Cognitive impairment is evident euthymic patients with bipolar disorder (BP) and in their first-degree relatives (BP-Rel). Increasing evidence suggests that BP is also associated with social cognitive impairment. It is important to establish whether social cognitive impairment is also evident in BP-Rel. A novel meta-analysis of theory of mind (ToM) and facial emotion recognition in BP-Rel including 16 studies (728 first-degree relatives of patients with BP and 865 healthy controls) was conducted. ToM (d=0.34, CI=0.16-0.52) was significantly impaired in BP-Rel. The effect size for the difference between BP-Rel and healthy controls was smaller for facial emotion recognition (d=0.17, CI=0.16-0.29) and could be nonsignificant after the effect of publication bias was taken into account. First-degree relatives of patients with BP underperform healthy subjects in social cognitive abilities, particularly in ToM. However, the effect size for between-group difference is small. ToM impairment might be a vulnerability marker of BP.
authors.affiliation: Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Izmir, Turkey; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia. Electronic address: emre.bora@deu.edu.tr.
authors.forename: Emre
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bora
authors.affiliation: Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Izmir, Turkey; Dokuz Eylul University, Health Sciences Institute, Department of Neurosciences, Izmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ayşegül
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Özerdem
mesh_terms: D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Bipolar disorder; Cognition; Emotion recognition; Familial; Relatives; Theory of mind