Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 May;147(1-3):397-400.
doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2012.08.020. Epub 2012 Sep 11.

Aberrant executive attention in unaffected youth at familial risk for mood disorders

Emily L Belleau  1 , Mary L Phillips, Boris Birmaher, David A Axelson, Cecile D Ladouceur
Affiliations

Aberrant executive attention in unaffected youth at familial risk for mood disorders

Emily L Belleau et al. J Affect Disord. 2013 May.

Abstract

Background: Aberrant attentional processes in individuals with mood disorders - bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) - have been well documented. This study examined whether unaffected youth at familial risk for mood disorders would exhibit poor alerting, orienting, and executive attention relative to age-matched controls.

Methods: A sample of youth (8-17 years old) having one parent with either BD or MDD (Mood-Risk, n=29) and youth having healthy parents (HC, n=27) completed the Attention Network Test-Short version (ANT-S), which assesses alerting, orienting, and executive attention.

Results: Relative to HCs, the Mood-Risk group had significantly slower reaction times on an index of executive attention, but no differences on indices of alerting or orienting. There were no differences between the two at-risk groups (i.e., youth with BD parent vs. youth with MDD parent) on any ANT-S measure.

Limitations: The current study is limited by its cross-sectional design, small sample size, and failure to control for familial environmental factors.

Conclusions: The findings extend previous results indicating that altered executive attention may represent an endophenotype for mood disorders in at-risk youth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

Dr. Birmaher has received royalties for publications from Random House, Inc. (New Hope for Children and Teens with Bipolar Disorder) and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (Treating Child and Adolescent Depression). The other authors declare that they have no competing financial interests, or other interests that might be perceived to influence the results and discussion reported in the paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Attention Difference Scores (in milliseconds) for the Mood-Risk and Healthy Control groups. Note. Mood-Risk Group: Psychiatrically healthy youth at risk for bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder by virtue of having a parent with one of the disorders. Healthy Control Group: Psychiatrically healthy youth with parents that are free of current or lifetime psychiatric disorders. *p<0.05
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bora E, Yucel M, Pantelis C. Cognitive endophenotypes of bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis of neuropsychological deficits in euthymic patients and their first-degree relatives. J Affect Disord. 2009;113:1–20. - PubMed
    1. Brotman MA, Rooney MH, Skup M, Pine DS, Leibenluft E. Increased intrasubject variability in response time in youths with bipolar disorder and at-risk family members. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2009;48:628–635. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Clark L, Kempton MJ, Scarna A, Grasby PM, Goodwin GM. Sustained attention-deficit confirmed in euthymic bipolar disorder but not in first-degree relatives of bipolar patients or euthymic depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2005;57:183–187. - PubMed
    1. Fan J, McCandliss BD, Sommer T, Raz A, Posner MI. Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. J Cogn Neurosci. 2002;14:340–347. - PubMed
    1. First MB, Spitzer RL, Gibbon M, Williams JB. Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders. American Psychiatric Press, Inc; Washington, D.C: 1997.

Publication types