Kognitive und neuronale Korrelate der emotionalen Verarbeitung bei Patienten mit bipolaren Störungen sowie deren Verwandte ersten Grades und gesunden Kontrollprobanden

情感障碍，如双相情感障碍，被概念化为由情感功能障碍引起或至少伴随着情感功能障碍。然而，双相情感障碍的情绪加工及其认知和神经相关性的研究还不是很广泛。最近的神经影像学研究表明，双相情感障碍患者表现出与情绪信息处理相关的大脑区域的结构变化。此外，改变大脑激活模式，即减少皮层和增加皮层下的大脑激活过程中观察到的情绪相关的任务。到目前为止，还没有研究调查双相情感障碍患者认知、结构和功能性大脑改变与遗传变异之间的关系。因此，本研究探讨情感处理在双相情感障碍中的作用，在多层次的方法。在两项研究中，20名情感正常（即缓解的双相情感障碍患者）、20名双相情感障碍患者的一级亲属和20名健康对照者将参与三种不同的认知实验范式（研究1）以及结构（扩散张量成像）和功能（fMRI）神经成像程序（研究2）。此外，计划在所有参与者中进行遗传分析，重点是功能遗传多态性与不同大脑区域内情绪处理差异之间的联系。

Affective disorders, such as bipolar disorders are conceptualized as being caused or at least accompanied by dysfunctions of emotion. However, research on emotional processing and its cognitive and neuronal correlates in bipolar disorder has not been very extensive. Recent neuroimaging studies suggested that bipolar patients exhibit structural changes in brain areas relevant to the processing of emotional information. Furthermore, altered brain activation patterns, i.e. decreased cortical and increased subcortical brain activation were observed during emotion-related tasks. So far, no study investigated the relation between cognitive, structural and functional brain alterations and genetic variations in bipolar patients. The present study therefore examines the role of emotional processing in bipolar disorders in a multi-level approach. In two studies 20 euthymic, i.e. remitted bipolar patients, 20 first-grade relatives of bipolar patients and 20 healthy controls will participate in three different cognitive experimental paradigms (study 1) as well as structural (diffusion tensor imaging) and functional (fMRI) neuroimaging procedures (study 2). In addition, genetic analysis focusing on the link between functional genetic polymorphisms and differences in emotional processing within distinct brain regions is planned to be performed in all participants.