Kids with Bipolar React Different to Facial Expressions

It seems like everyday another child is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In a recent press release, researchers announced that children suffering from bipolar disorder see facial expressions differently that children who are the same age, but are not bipolar.

Researchers from Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island were looking for ways that they could identify how children diagnosed with bipolar react differently than children without the disorder. This is an important neurological milestone and will help researchers as they move forward with other research into the neurological issues surrounding bipolar disorder.

Clear differences were found in brain patterns, and how the children identified different emotions that were presented to them. The participants with bipolar disorder had significantly greater levels of brain activity when viewing the expressions on happy faces and on angry faces when compared to the non-bipolar group of children. It is important to note that when they are in a manic state, unlike adults, children are are usually extremely irritable and agitated.

The angry faces triggered more brain activity in the area that is responsible for irritability. Happy faces triggered a significantly larger amount of brain activity in the rewards area of the brain.

This knowledge may prove useful when treating bipolar children with medication or other forms of therapy.

"Although we know a great deal clinically about bipolar disorder in kids, our understanding of its neurobiology is quite limited, making it difficult to design targeted treatments. We used neuroimaging technology to study the brain-behavior interactions of children with bipolar disorder in hopes of shedding some light on this relatively unknown area." said Daniel P. Dickstein, M.D., director of the pediatric mood, imaging and neurodevelopment program at Bradley Hospital. Dickstein was also the lead author of this report.

About the study
This study included 23 children who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and 22 children who were typical of their age and had not been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. All of the children who participated were between 7 and 17 years old.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for this study. An MRI is not invasive; the participants were placed into a tube like device while the MRI scanned their brain to detect patters of brain activity during this study.

The children were shown different black and white photographs of actors portraying one of four different emotions. The emotions displayed were anger, fear, happy, and neutral. Each child rated different facets of the various emotions that were portrayed. Additionally, they were asked to rate different facial features, such as the width of a nose, or size of eyes.

Dickstein used to work with the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted this study while in their employ. He is also an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Results of this study have been published in the journal, Bipolar Disorders.

Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/l-feh112607.php