Neurological abnormalities in patients with bipolar disorder

A test for agraphaesthesia and the face-hand test were administered to 75 DSM-III bipolar disorder patients. Twenty-five patients (33.3%) had abnormal findings on these tests. Abnormal findings were limited to the group of 54 patients with a history of long-term neuroleptic exposure. There was a strong correlation between the duration of cumulative neuroleptic exposure and the presence of abnormalities. In the group with long-term neuroleptic exposure, family history of affective disorders was negatively correlated with the presence of abnormalities. It appears that long-term neuroleptic exposure may be a contributory causal factor in the development of abnormal neurological signs in bipolar patients. A tendency toward more left-hand errors suggesting hemispheric integration dysfunction was noted in the patients exposed to long-term neuroleptics.