BACKGROUND Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and psychotic bipolar disorder overlap with regard to symptoms, structural and functional brain abnormalities, and genetic risk factors. Neurobiological pathways connecting genes to clinical phenotypes across the spectrum from schizophrenia to psychotic bipolar disorder remain largely unknown. METHODS We examined the relationship between str...

The diagnosis of Bipolar Spectrum Disorders (BSD) given for office visits has risen 40 fold for children and has risen dramatically for adults as well. Some of the growth may have been fueled by re-categorization of individuals who would previously have received diagnoses of major depression along with the widening of diagnostic criteria for BSD. Concomitant with the rise in BSD diagnoses, the ...

OBJECTIVE Traumatic stress disorders are prevalent in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, there is a lack of prospective longitudinal studies investigating the risk of severe mental illness for people diagnosed with traumatic stress disorders. We aimed to assess if patients with acute stress reaction (ASR) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at increased risk of ...

BACKGROUND Cognitive impairments are well-established features of schizophrenia, but there is ongoing debate about the nature and degree of cognitive impairment in patients with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder. We hypothesized that there is a spectrum of increasing impairment from bipolar disorder to schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, to schizoaffective disorder depressive typ...

It is clinically important to recognize both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder (BPD) in patients seeking treatment for depression, and it is important to distinguish between the two. Research considering whether BPD should be considered part of a bipolar spectrum reaches differing conclusions. We reviewed the most studied question on the relationship between BPD and bipolar d...

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants MH 52617 and MH 77908 to Lauren B. Alloy, and MH 52662 to Lyn Y. Abramson. Abstract Bipolar disorders and substance use disorders (SUDs) show high co-occurrence. One explanation for this co-occurrence may be common personality vulnerabilities involved in both. We tested whether high Behavioral Approach S...

BACKGROUND Psychiatric comorbidity of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has not been well examined. METHODS Mood disorders in 44 consecutive outpatients with high-functioning ASD were examined at a university hospital according to DSM-IV. Inclusion criteria were an IQ of 70 or higher on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and age of 12 years or over. RESULTS Sixteen patients (36.4%) were diagnosed...

Bipolar disorders and substance use disorders (SUDs) show high co-occurrence. One explanation for this co-occurrence may be common personality vulnerabilities involved in both. The authors tested whether high behavioral approach system (BAS) sensitivity and impulsiveness are shared personality vulnerabilities in bipolar spectrum disorders and substance use problems and their co-occurrence in a ...

In this article, we review empirical research on the role of individuals' current environmental contexts, cognitive styles, and developmental histories as risk factors for the onset, course, and expression of bipolar spectrum disorders. Our review is focused on the following over arching question: Do psychosocial factors truly contribute risk to the onset, course, or expression of bipolar disor...

BACKGROUND Mood stabilizers like lithium and anticonvulsants are used in bipolar and related psychotic disorders. There is a lack of knowledge of the relationship of these medications and cognition in the psychosis spectrum. We studied the association between serum concentration of mood stabilizers and cognitive performance in a well-characterized sample of bipolar and schizophrenia spectrum di...