BACKGROUND Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are severe psychiatric diseases with overlapping symptomatology. Widespread brain morphologic abnormalities, including cortical thinning and subcortical volume reductions, have been demonstrated in schizophrenia but it is unclear whether similar abnormalities are present in bipolar disorder. The purpose of this study was to compare cortical thicknes...

Bipolar disorder is characterized by exacerbations of opposite mood polarity, ranging from manic to major depressive episodes. In the current nosological system of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - 5(th) edition (DSM-5), it is conceptualized as a spectrum disorder consisting of bipolar disorder type I, bipolar disorder type II, cyclothymic disorder, and bipolar disorder not otherwise spec...

We previously identified a significant bipolar spectrum disorder linkage peak on 15q25-26 using 35 extended families with a broad clinical phenotype, including bipolar disorder (types I and II), recurrent unipolar depression and schizoaffective disorder. However, the specific gene(s) contributing to this signal had not been identified. By a fine mapping association study in an Australian case-c...

This study examined the interaction of cognitive style (as assessed self-report and information-processing battery) and stressful life events in predicting the clinician-rated depressive and manic symptomatology of participants with Research Diagnostic Criteria lifetime diagnoses of bipolar disorder (n = 49), unipolar depression (n = 97), or no lifetime diagnosis (n = 23). Bipolar and unipolar ...

BACKGROUND Administrative data can be used to support research, such as in the UK Biobank. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are national data for England that include contain ICD-10 diagnoses for inpatient mental healthcare episodes, but the validity of these diagnoses for research purposes has not been assessed. METHODS 250 peoples' HES records were selected based on a HES recorded inpatien...

Vivid emotional mental imagery has been identified across a range of mental disorders. In bipolar spectrum disorders - psychopathologies characterized by mood swings that alternate between depression and mania, and include irritability and mixed affect states - mental imagery has been proposed to drive instability in both 'positive' and 'negative' mood. That is, mental imagery can act as an "em...

Bipolar affective disorder is a chronic, relapsing and remitting mental illness with lifetime risk between 0.5 and 1.6% worldwide (Weissman et al. 1996). This prevalence increases to 5.5% for bipolar spectrum disorders comprising bipolar I, bipolar II and other subtypes (Reegeer et al. 2004). Bipolar disorder is a significant source of distress, disability, and loss of life through suicide (Woo...

A growing body of evidence suggests that people with bipolar disorder are highly goal-oriented. Compared to other persons, they expend more effort to attain rewards and view goal pursuit as more important to their self-worth. Persons at risk for mania and those diagnosed with bipolar spectrum disorders have been shown to endorse highly ambitious life goals, such as becoming a multimillionaire o...