Abnormal emotion processing in bipolar disorder: Lessons from neuroimaging

The symptoms of bipolar disorder are: persistently elevated or irritable mood; recklessness and distractibility during manic episodes; marked low mood; and anhedonia and impaired concentration and decision-making during depressed episodes. These symptoms suggest marked impairments in emotion processing. Despite this, there has been relatively little examination of the nature of emotion-processing abnormalities in patients with bipolar disorder. Structural and functional neuroanatomic correlates, and the extent to which these abnormalities are state or trait features of the disorder, should be investigated.