Negative Emotion Interference During a Synonym Matching

11 This study examined whether processing of emotional words impairs cognitive performance in acutely ill patients with 12 pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), with or without comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), relative to 13 healthy controls (HC). Forty youths with PBD without ADHD, 20 youths with PBD and ADHD, and 29 HC (mean 14 age5 12.976 3.13) performed a Synonym Matching task, where they decided which of two probe words was the 15 synonym of a target word. The three words presented on each trial all had the same emotional valence, which could be 16 negative, positive, or neutral. Relative to HC both PBD groups exhibited worse accuracy for emotional words relative to 17 neutral ones. This effect was greater with negative words and observed regardless of whether PBD patients had comorbid 18 ADHD. In the PBD group without ADHD, manic symptoms correlated negatively with accuracy for negative words, and 19 positively with reaction time (RT) for all word types. Our findings suggest a greater disruptive effect of emotional valence 20 in both PBD groups relative to HC, reflecting the adverse effect of altered emotion processing on cognitive function in 21 PBD. Future studies including an ADHD group will help clarify how ADHD symptoms may affect emotional interference 22 independently of PBD. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–12) 23 24