Assessing the potential to use neurocognition to predict who is at risk for developing bipolar disorder: a review of the literature.

INTRODUCTION: The importance of early intervention strategies has recently been recognised in the field of psychiatry. Although early intervention strategies in schizophrenia have been extensively studied, recent efforts to identify individuals who are at increased risk for other disorders, such as bipolar disorder, have gained significant interest. There is some available data to suggest that cognitive deficits may precede the onset of mania; therefore, it would be beneficial to identify cognitive predictors of bipolar disorder in an effort to facilitate early intervention.
METHODS: We conducted a literature review of conscript, cohort, high-risk, family-based and first-episode mania studies that assessed neurocognition in order to ascertain potential cognitive predictors of bipolar disorder.
RESULTS: There is little evidence that individuals at risk for bipolar disorder exhibit deficits in global measures of neurocognition, such as IQ. However, deficits in specific neurocognitive domains, including verbal memory and executive function, appear to represent potential predictors of bipolar disorder.
CONCLUSIONS: These conclusions are preliminary; however, they provide a starting point for future work. Additional efforts towards understanding both the clinical and cognitive prodrome will be important in elucidating the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder.