A longitudinal view on the effects of metabolic syndrome on cognitive decline in bipolar disorder.

Abstract

The high prevalence for metabolic syndrome in bipolar disorder is associated with an increased risk for poorer clinical outcome and cognitive deficits. As both, bipolar disorder and metabolic syndrome, are related to cognitive deficits, there is a need to investigate whether metabolic syndrome further worsens the course of cognitive decline over time in individuals with bipolar disorder. We therefore investigated the longitudinal effects of metabolic syndrome on cognitive decline in patients with bipolar disorder, using a sample of 52 patients who participated twice with an interval of one year. Of these, 17 participants had metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome was measured using IDF criteria. A neurocognitive test battery, including the Trail-Making-Test A/B, Digit-Symbol-Test, and California Verbal Learning/Verbal Learning and Memory Test was used measuring different cognitive domains. Linear regression analyses showed no deteriorating effects of the metabolic syndrome on the one-year trajectory of global cognitive performance, verbal learning and memory, executive functioning, and psychomotor and processing speed and attention. However, patients with bipolar disorder and additional metabolic syndrome performed significantly worse in the domain of psychomotor and processing speed and attention than patients without the metabolic syndrome at both measurement times. In conclusion, the metabolic syndrome did not further worsen cognitive function over a one-year period in our sample, but those with metabolic syndrome showed significantly worse performance in psychomotor and processing speed and attention performance at baseline.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Graz
Supervisor	Nina Dalkner (Co-supervisor)