Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry (Oct 2022)

Facial processing in bipolar disorder is mediated by clinical and biological aspects

  • Irina I. Shoshina,
  • Milena E. Oliveira,
  • Gabriella M. Silva,
  • Nathalia S. Negreiros,
  • Fatima M. Felisberti,
  • Thiago P. Fernandes,
  • Natanael A. Santos

DOI
https://doi.org/10.47626/1516-4446-2022-2490

Abstract

Read online

Objective: The process of detecting faces can be considered one of the initial steps in face recognition, which is essential for human interaction. We sought to investigate whether a face perception task reliably detects subtle perceptual disturbances between patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy controls. Methods: In this multisite study, we examined differences between BD patients and matched healthy controls. Participants were instructed to detect the orientation (either left or right) of a face when it was presented as a face/non-face pair on a computer screen using Bayesian entropy estimation. Data analyses compared performance between the groups. Results: Overall, BD patients exhibited more perceptual disturbances compared with controls. BD patients who took olanzapine had better performance and faster reaction times (RTs) than patients who took lithium or were medication-naive. BD patients who took lithium had better performance and faster RTs than medication-naive patients. The medication-naive BD group exhibited greater disturbances than all other groups. Conclusion: These findings highlight the reliability of the face perception task used herein and may be important for public health initiatives and follow-up studies that seek to understand the diverse effects of other variables that can affect sensory processing in this population.

Keywords