Premium
Facial emotion recognition in childhood‐onset bipolar I disorder: an evaluation of developmental differences between youths and adults
Author(s) -
Wegbreit Ezra,
Weissman Alexandra B,
Cushman Grace K,
Puzia Megan E,
Kim Kerri L,
Leibenluft Ellen,
Dickstein Daniel P
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
bipolar disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.285
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1399-5618
pISSN - 1398-5647
DOI - 10.1111/bdi.12312
Subject(s) - psychology , bipolar disorder , mood , young adult , clinical psychology , cognition , psychiatry , developmental psychology
Objectives Bipolar disorder ( BD ) is a severe mental illness with high healthcare costs and poor outcomes. Increasing numbers of youths are diagnosed with BD , and many adults with BD report that their symptoms started in childhood, suggesting that BD can be a developmental disorder. Studies advancing our understanding of BD have shown alterations in facial emotion recognition both in children and adults with BD compared to healthy comparison ( HC ) participants, but none have evaluated the development of these deficits. To address this, we examined the effect of age on facial emotion recognition in a sample that included children and adults with confirmed childhood‐onset type‐I BD , with the adults having been diagnosed and followed since childhood by the Course and Outcome in Bipolar Youth study. Methods Using the Diagnostic Analysis of Non‐Verbal Accuracy, we compared facial emotion recognition errors among participants with BD (n = 66; ages 7–26 years) and HC participants (n = 87; ages 7–25 years). Complementary analyses investigated errors for child and adult faces. Results A significant diagnosis‐by‐age interaction indicated that younger BD participants performed worse than expected relative to HC participants their own age. The deficits occurred both for child and adult faces and were particularly strong for angry child faces, which were most often mistaken as sad. Our results were not influenced by medications, comorbidities/substance use, or mood state/global functioning. Conclusions Younger individuals with BD are worse than their peers at this important social skill. This deficit may be an important developmentally salient treatment target – that is, for cognitive remediation to improve BD youths’ emotion recognition abilities.