Emotional memory in bipolar disorder

Cognitive impairment has been well documented in bipolar disorder. However, specific aspects of cognition such as emotional memory have not been examined. To investigate episodic emotional memory in bipolar disorder, as indicated by performance on an amygdala-related cognitive task. Twenty euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and 20 matched controls were recruited. Participants were shown a slide show of an emotionally neutral story, or a closely matched emotionally arousing story. One week later, participants were assessed on a memory-recall test. In contrast with the pattern observed in controls, patients with bipolar disorder had no enhancement of memory for the emotional content of the story (F=14.7, d.f.=1,36, P