Humor appreciation in remitted patients with bipolar disorder

The purpose of the present study was to investigate humor appreciation in a group of remitted patients with bipolar disorder. We examined 19 patients (8 men) with bipolar disorder I, currently remitted, and 22 (9 men) healthy controls, matched on age, education, and gender, on a computerized test comprising captionless cartoons, the Penn's Humor Appreciation Test (PHAT). Residual manic symptoms were evaluated with the Young Mania Rating Scale and residual depressive symptoms with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale. Patients with bipolar disorder performed worse than the healthy group on the PHAT, but this difference was not statistically significant. Performance on the PHAT did not significantly correlate with age of onset and duration of illness, or with residual manic or depressive symptoms measured by Young Mania Rating Scale and Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, respectively. Humor appreciation, based on captionless cartoons, in bipolar disorder does not seem to be deficient at least during remission, suggesting that this high-order cognitive function may not be considered a trait deficit of the disorder.