Bipolar Disorder, Monetary Incentives, and the Brain

Usin fMRI, Johnson, Mehta, Ketter, Gotlib, and Knutson (2019) investigated anticipated and received monetary rewards in patients with bipolar 1 disorder and matched healthy control subjects. 

Neural and behavioral responses were investigated with the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MID).

At the behavioral level, no differences among bipolar disorder patients and healthy control subjects were found. The fMRI results revealed that patients with bipolar disorder exhibited diminished activity in the ventral striatum, including hypoactivity of the nucleus accumbens while they were anticipating monetary gains as compared to healthy control subjects.

In the conditions of responses to anticipation or loss, the two groups did not differ in their neural responses.

A hypoactivation of the nucleus accumbens was also more evident in participants reporting more impulsive responsivity regarding positive emotion (Johnson et al., 2019).