Background: Cognitive impairment has been well documented in bipolar disorder. However, specific aspects of cognition such as emotional memory have not been examined.
Aims: To investigate episodic emotional memory in bipolar disorder, as indicated by performance on an amygdala-related cognitive task.
Method: 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.
Results: 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<0.001). The subjective perception of the emotional impact of the emotional condition was significantly different from that of the neutral condition in controls but not in people with bipolar disorder.
Conclusions: Our data suggest that the physiological pattern of enhanced memory retrieval for emotionally bound information is blunted in bipolar disorder.