Bipolar disorder patients tend to take more risks compared to others, a new research suggests. Researchers explain that this is because parts of their brains responsible for pursuing and enjoying rewarding experiences are more active.
Researchers at the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool used brain imaging and identified specific neural pathways responsible for the symptoms of the disorder.
For the study, the research team told participants to play 'Roulette' in which they made safe or risky gambles. Researchers then measured brain activity in the participants during the experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
The findings showed that the 'pleasure center' of the brain known as nucleus accumben that encourages humans to seek out and pursue rewards, was more strongly activated in people with bipolar disorder compared to those in the healthy control group.
"The greater buzz that people with bipolar disorder get from reward is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it helps people strive towards their goals and ambitions, which may contribute to the success enjoyed by many people with this diagnosis. However, it comes at a cost: these same people may be swayed more by immediate rewards when making decisions and less by the long-term consequences of these actions," Professor Wael El-Deredy said in a press release.
Professor Richard Bentall said that this research showed how the new tools of neuroscience help to better understand the psychological mechanisms that cause psychiatric disorders, which were difficult to understand up until now.
"Understanding how the brain works to regulate the pursuit of goals will help us to design, evaluate and monitor better therapies for bipolar disorder," Dr. Liam Mason, who now works at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said in a statement.
The findings were published in the journal BRAIN.
