Impaired visuospatial working memory but preserved attentional control in bipolar disorder

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Working memory (WM) and attention deficits significantly impact daily functioning in people with bipolar disorder (PBD).
• Understanding the neurocognitive basis of these deficits is crucial for developing effective pro-cognitive interventions.
• This study investigated the interplay between attentional control and WM encoding in PBD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To jointly examine attentional control and working memory encoding in individuals with bipolar disorder.
• To determine if attentional deficits contribute to working memory impairments in PBD.
• To elucidate the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying WM dysfunction in PBD.

Main Methods:

• A visuospatial change-detection task was employed with 63 euthymic PBD patients and 76 healthy controls (HCS).
• Attentional competition during WM encoding was investigated by manipulating bottom-up attention (stimulus salience via flickering Gabor patches) and top-down attention (predictive cues for target locations).

Main Results:

• People with bipolar disorder demonstrated significantly reduced visual WM capacity compared to healthy controls across all conditions.
• No significant interactions between group and salience or group and cue were found.
• These results indicate that impaired WM in PBD is not attributable to deficits in attentional control.

Conclusions:

• Working memory is impaired in people with bipolar disorder.
• Attentional prioritization of salient stimuli and utilization of top-down cues remain intact in PBD.
• Findings suggest that later stages of WM encoding, such as consolidation, are primarily affected, rather than selective attention.