Differing amygdala responses to facial expressions in children and adults with bipolar disorder.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Child and adult bipolar patients show both behavioral deficits in face emotion processing and abnormal amygdala activation. However, amygdala function in pediatric relative to adult bipolar patients has not been compared directly. The authors used functional MRI to compare amygdala activity during a face processing task in children and adults with bipolar disorder and in healthy comparison subjects.

Method

Amygdala responses to emotional facial expressions were examined in pediatric (N=18) and adult (N=17) bipolar patients and in healthy child (N=15) and adult (N=22) volunteers. Participants performed a gender identification task while viewing fearful, angry, and neutral faces.

Results

In response to fearful faces, bipolar patients across age groups exhibite

SUBMITTER: Kim P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3383787 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature