Figure 2.

Gender differences in Multiple Errands Test (MET) performances

Ne uro psyc ho lo g ic al and So cial Co g nitio n de ficits in Bipo lar Diso rde r and Schizo phre nia: Pre liminary Data
Caldiroli A1, Serati M1, Caletti E1, Zugno E1, Cigliobianco M1, Orsenigo G1, Fiorentini A1, Paoli RA1, Grillo P2, Consonni D2, Zago S3, Altamura AC1.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Milan, Fondazione IRCCSCa Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico 2 Epidemiology Unit, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Milan, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico 3 Department of Neurology, University of Milan, Fondazione IRCCSCa' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan
1

INTRODUCTION
In the last years the interest in knowing neurocognitive functioning and social cognition in major psychoses, schizophrenia (SKZ) and bipolar disorder (BD), has increased [1,2]. Social cognition has been defined as a mediator between neurocognition and functional outcome [3]. This study aimed to determine the extent of impairment in social and non social cognitive domains in an ecological context in patients with BD and SKZ compared to healthy controls (HC) and its correlation with global functioning, measured with GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning).

METHODS
Sample: 30 stable SKZ patients, 18 euthymic BD patients and 18 age-matched HC. Patients underwent clinical assessment rating scales. Both patients and HC completed the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) and the Executive and Social Cognition Battery (ESCB), which includes ecological tests (Multiple Errands Test Hospital Version [MET-HV], Hotel Task, IOWA Gambling Task [IGT]) and Theory of Mind (ToM) tests (Reading the Mind in the Eyes test and Faux Pas test).

RESULTS
The groups differed for the presence of a history of substance abuse and for gender. However, statistical analysis adjusted for abuse, age and gender confirm that our results were not influenced by these differences. Both SKZ and BD patients performed significantly worse than HC in the majority of BACS subtests. BD patients performed better than SKZ patients in verbal memory and symbol coding (data not shown).

ESCB
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Both patients groups showed a worse performance compared to HC in both MET-HV and Hotel Task; moreover, SKZ subjects results were worse than BD patients ones in both tests. In ToM tests, only SKZ patients obtained significantly lower scores compared to HC and to BD patients, who performed similarly to HC. Significant differences in IGT were found only when comparing SKZ to HC.
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GAF
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* Significantly different from HC (p < 0.05) * Significantly different from BD

GAF scores were significantly lower for both patientsgroups compared to HC and for SKZ patients compared to BD. Moreover, scores were correlated to the performance in BACS tests, in both ToM tasks, in MET-HV and Hotel task.

CONCLUSIONS
Both BD and SKZ patients showed cognitive impairment compared to HC, even in ecologicaltests, that mimic real life scenarios. BD patients, however, showed less impairment with respect to schizophrenic ones. Performance both in ecological and in ToMtasks seemed to predict global functioning in both patients groups. Further investigations on larger samples are needed.

REFERENCES
[1] Samam, C., Martino DJ., Strejilevich SA., 2012 Social cognition in euthymic bipolar disorder: systematic review and meta-analytic approach. Acta Psychiatr Scand 25, 266 280. [2] Torralva, T., Strejilevich, S., Gleichgerrcht, E., Roca, M., Martino, D., Cetkovich, M., Manes, F., 2012 Deficit in task of executive funtioning that mimic real-life scenarios in bipolar disoder. Bipolar Disorders 14, 118-125. [3] Schmidt SJ., Mueller DR., Roder V., 2011 Social cognition as a mediator variable between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia: empirical review and new results by structural equation modeling. Schizoph Bull 37, Suppl 2:S41-54

The authors do not have any affiliation or financial interest with any organization which may pose a conflict of interest with this article. Correspondence: alyscaldi@gmail.com