Age moderates the relationship between affective response inhibition and bipolar disorder in adults.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) often have impairments in neurocognition, including affective processing and affective response inhibition. While studies suggest that cognitive control in general may decline with age in BD, less is known about age-related changes in response inhibition to emotionally salient information.

Methods

258 participants with BD and 54 healthy controls, ages 18-70, completed the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) Affective Go/No-Go task to assess affective response inhibition to positive and negative valenced stimuli. We examined the relationship between BD and affective response inhibition (number of commission and omission errors and reaction time), as well as a potential moderating effect of age, using mixed effects linear regression models.

Results

The BD group made more omission and commission errors overall than the control group (p < 0.018). We observed a significant 3-way group-by-age-by-valence interaction for reaction time (p = 0.006). Within BD, a slower reaction time to negative than positive stimuli was found in middle and older age groups (p < 0.012), but not in the younger age group. No significant moderating effect of age was observed within the control group.

Conclusions

These cross-sectional findings indicate that compared with healthy controls, individuals with BD display differential and age-related effects in inhibition to emotionally salient information that is valence-dependent. The observed pattern of a switch in bias from negative to positive stimuli with age in BD may aid in our understanding of the progression of neurocognitive changes with aging in BD, as well as inform targeted treatments for cognitive symptoms.

SUBMITTER: Slate SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8577218 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature