Traumatic experiences affect negative emotion processing in bipolar disorder - 08/07/17
Résumé |
Introduction |
Patients affected by bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) show a significant emotional impairment during both acute and euthymic phases of the illness, but the influence of negative life experiences is not yet fully understood.
Objectives |
Aim of the present study was to investigate the role of previous traumatic events on negative emotion processing in euthymic BD-I patients.
Methods |
Eighteen euthymic BD-I patients, 7 reporting past traumatic events (T-BD-I), but free of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms at the moment of the evaluation and 11 never exposed to traumas (NT-BD-I), were compared to 24 not traumatized controls (NC). All participants performed a IAPS-based emotional task: they were required to identify vegetable items (targets) among neutral or negative pictures. Accuracy (percentage of correct responses) and mean reaction times (RT) were recorded.
Results |
T-BD-I performed similarly to NC and significantly better than NT-BD-I in terms of accuracy (Fig. 1). No significant between-group effects were observed for mean RT.
Conclusions |
A previous history of traumatic events, without current PTSD symptoms, may significantly impact the negative emotion processing in euthymic BD-I. Interestingly, traumatized patients showed a better accuracy when processing both neutral and negative images, thus suggesting that paying more attention to external stimuli may be a successful compensatory mechanism to cope with potential environmental threats.
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Vol 41 - N° S
P. S93 - avril 2017 Retour au numéroBienvenue sur EM-consulte, la référence des professionnels de santé.
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