277. Open adjunctive gabapentin effective in bipolar depression

Abstract

resolved during euthymia and hypomania in a case report of a rapid cycling bipolar disorder patient. Facial emotion recognition has not been extensively studied in groups of manic and euthymic patients compared to healthy controls. Seven manic (YMRS . 20) bipolar I and eight euthymic bipolar II disorder patients, and six healthy controls matched (1) Ekman’s Pictures of Facial Affect (EPFA) to descriptors of six basic emotions (fear, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, happiness); (2) EPFA to one another for facial emotion; and (3) Benton Facial Recognition photographs to one another for identity. On task (1), manic patients’ scores for “fear” were lower than euthymic patients and healthy controls. Manic patients compared to controls (but not compared to euthymic patients) also had decreased scores for 4/5 (anger, surprise, disgust, and sadness, but not happiness) of the other basic emotion descriptors. Euthymic patients did not differ significantly from controls. Task (2) showed similar results, while on task (3), there were no significant between-group differences. Thus, manic patients had impaired facial fear recognition compared to both controls and euthymic bipolar II patients, and impaired facial sadness (but not happiness) recognition compared to controls. It remains to be determined whether these differences are due to the manic state or the bipolar I disorder trait. Euthymic bipolar II patients did not have facial emotion recognition deficits, in contrast to prior studies in depressed patients.