Familial Aggregation Seen in Bipolar Disorder
THURSDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Parents of children with narrow phenotype bipolar disorder are significantly more likely to have bipolar disorder than are parents of children with severe mood dysregulation, according to study findings published in the August issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Melissa A. Brotman, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues used the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies to interview 42 parents of 33 children with narrow phenotype bipolar disorder and 37 parents of 30 children with severe mood dysregulation.
The researchers found that children with narrow phenotype bipolar disorder were significantly more likely than children with severe mood dysregulation to have a parent with bipolar disorder (33 percent versus 2.7 percent).
"These data suggest that narrow phenotype bipolar disorder may be distinct from severe mood dysregulation in terms of familial aggregation," the authors conclude.
