Social cognition in first episode bipolar disorder patients

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe theory of mind (ToM) and emotional processing (EP) functioning in recently diagnosed bipolar disorder (BD). We evaluated 26 first episode BD (mean age 22.9 ± 7.4) and 26 controls matched on age, gender, education, and premorbid intelligence. A significant poorer performance on the capacity of patients to infer other's intentions (cognitive ToM) that was partially independent from neurocognitive deficits (p < 0.01) as well as a lower recognition of fear was observed among patients. No significant association between any of these deficits and psychosocial functioning emerged in multivariate regression analyses.