This is a genetic association study of cognitive impairment in young bipolar disease type I patients without medications in mania, depression, hypomania or mixed states.

Introduction:

Cognitive impairment in bipolar disease (BD) patients is common and recent data suggests that it may be an endophenotype of the disease as it differs individually, persists during periods of euthymia and co segregates in families of BD patients. Cognition is a complex trait and is therefore likely to be underpinned by many genes, each with a relatively small effect. Performance in each domain of the neuropsychological assessment can be statistically linked to the functional activity of particular protein and by extension to the genetic variants accounting for theses functional differences.

Methods:

80 patients with BD type I (SCID DSM-IV), age from 18 to 35 years old, currently on mania, depression, hypomania or mixed state after medication wash out will be submitted to complete neuropsychological evaluation and genotyped for COMT (val158met, rs165599, -287, rs737865), ApoE (epsilon 4) and BDNF (val66met)and 80 healthy controls.

Inclusion Criteria:

• BD type 1
• non euthymia
• 18-35 y.o.

Exclusion Criteria:

• pregnancy
• organic disease
• use of drugs
• schizophrenia
• mental retardation
• illiterate

Young bipolar disease patients in mania, depression, hypomania or mixed states without medication use over the past 15 days.