Affective temperaments and trait impulsivity in the group of bipolar outpatients and healthy volunteers: Could it also be relevant in the early diagnostic picture of bipolar mood disorder?

The concept of affective temperaments is rather old; however, studies by Akiskal and colleagues (Akiskal, Djenderedjian, Resenthal, & Khani, 1977) revived the concept by postulating that temperamental dysregulation may constitute the link between predisposing familial-genetic factors and affective disorders such as bipolar disorder. According to their view, temperament could represent the earliest subclinical phenotype of mood disorders. Several studies on affective temperaments found associations with affective disorders such as mania and depression (Hantouche et al., 1998; Matsumoto et al., 2005; Mazzarini et al., 2009), possibly representing a potential contributor to the bipolar spectrum (Akiskal & Pinto, 1999). Beside considerable association between temperamental traits and bipolar disorder, a number of studies have shown that the presence of a mood disorder is correlated with a significantly higher level of impulsiveness (Peluso et al., 2007; Swann, Steinberg, Lijffijt, & Moeller, 2008). However, there is a scarce of information about quantitative relationships between impulsivity and the course of illness in bipolar disorder. Swann and colleagues (Swann, Anderson, Dougherty, & Moeller, 2001) report that impulsivity as measured by Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995) appeared similarly elevated in the patients with bipolar disorder regardless of the phase of illness (mania or depression), suggesting that impulsivity might represent a stable component which is not purely a manifestation of mood state. Although affective temperaments and impulsivity represent personal traits which are frequently linked with mood disorders, less is known about the specific relationship between them. Signoretta, Maremmani, Liguori, Perugi and Akiskal (2005) report that cyclothymic disposition is associated with lifetime psychopathology and impulsivity, whereas Stanford, Greve and Dickens Jr. (1995) report of high correlation between impulsivity as measured by BIS11 and irritability. Impulsive individuals often reported of explosive, uncontrolled and accumulated anger, which is a key characteristic of irritable temperament. These authors Barbara Dolenc, Sociomedical Institute at Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, E-mail: [email protected] (the address for correspondence).