Project Summary

Vivienne A. Curtis, MBBS (Young Investigator 2000) of Institute of Psychiatry, will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine changes in brain activity in patients with bipolar disorder.  Patients will be tested on tasks of verbal fluency and semantic decision making at two time points: during a period of psychosis, and a period of remission.  It is hypothesized that in the psychotic state, bipolar patients will evidence decreased frontal lobe activation similar to that found in schizophrenia, and that in the remitted state, their frontal lobe activation will be similar to that found in controls.  This work should provide important information on the nature of brain dysfunction underlying psychosis, and in deciphering differences in brain function between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Program Area: MOOD DISORDERS\Bipolar

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