Emotional cognition subgroups in unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with mood disorders.
Psychol Med
; 53(6): 2328-2338, 2023 04.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37310310
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar disorder (BD) exhibit difficulties with emotional cognition even during remission. There is evidence for aberrant emotional cognition in unaffected relatives of patients with these mood disorders, but studies are conflicting. We aimed to investigate whether emotional cognition in unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with mood disorders is characterised by heterogeneity using a data-driven approach.METHODS:
Data from 94 unaffected relatives (33 of MDD patients; 61 of BD patients) and 203 healthy controls were pooled from two cohort studies. Emotional cognition was assessed with the Social Scenarios Test, Facial Expression Recognition Test and Faces Dot-Probe Test. Hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted using emotional cognition data from the 94 unaffected relatives. The resulting emotional cognition clusters and controls were compared for emotional and non-emotional cognition, demographic characteristics and functioning.RESULTS:
Two distinct clusters of unaffected relatives were identified a relatively 'emotionally preserved' cluster (55%; 40% relatives of MDD probands) and an 'emotionally blunted' cluster (45%; 29% relatives of MDD probands). 'Emotionally blunted' relatives presented with poorer neurocognitive performance (global cognition p = 0.010), heightened subsyndromal mania symptoms (p = 0.004), lower years of education (p = 0.004) and difficulties with interpersonal functioning (p = 0.005) than controls, whereas 'emotionally preserved' relatives were comparable to controls on these measures.CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings show discrete emotional cognition profiles that occur across healthy first-degree relatives of patients with MDD and BD. These emotional cognition clusters may provide insight into emotional cognitive markers of genetically distinct subgroups of individuals at familial risk of mood disorders.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Bipolar Disorder
/
Depressive Disorder, Major
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Psychol Med
Year:
2023
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Denmark