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Emotional memory in bipolar disorder

Department of Biochemistry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Mood Disorders Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Lakshmi N. Yatham, MD

Mood Disorders Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Juliana Tramontina, MD, Fernanda Weyne, MD, Keila Maria Cereser, PhD and Fernando Kratz Gazalle, MD, PhD

Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Bipolar Disorders Program, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre

Ana Cristina Andreazza, MSc

Department of Biochemistry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, and Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Bipolar Disorders Program, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre

Aida Santin, MD

Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Bipolar Disorders Program, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre

Joao Quevedo, MD, PhD

Neuroscience Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southern Santa Catarina, Criciuma

Ivan Izquierdo, PhD

Memory Centre, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre

Flavio Kapczinski, MD, PhD

Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and Bipolar Disorders Program, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, and Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Correspondence: Lakshmi N. Yatham, Mood Disorders Centre, University of British Columbia, 2C7 – 2255 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, Canada V6T 2A1. Email: yatham{at}exchange.ubc.ca

Declaration of interest

None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

Background

Cognitive impairment has been well documented in bipolar disorder. However, specific aspects of cognition such as emotional memory have not been examined.

Aims

To investigate episodic emotional memory in bipolar disorder, as indicated by performance on an amygdala-related cognitive task.

Method

Twenty euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and 20 matched controls were recruited. Participants were shown a slide show of an emotionally neutral story, or a closely matched emotionally arousing story. One week later, participants were assessed on a memory-recall test.

Results

In contrast with the pattern observed in controls, patients with bipolar disorder had no enhancement of memory for the emotional content of the story (F=14.7, d.f.=1,36, P<0.001). The subjective perception of the emotional impact of the emotional condition was significantly different from that of the neutral condition in controls but not in people with bipolar disorder.

Conclusions

Our data suggest that the physiological pattern of enhanced memory retrieval for emotionally bound information is blunted in bipolar disorder.

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