Relationships between auditory event-related potentials and mood state, medication, and comorbid psychiatric illness in patients with bipolar disorder.

Background: Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) exhibit aberrations in auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), although the relationships between these measures and mood state at testing, comorbid psychiatric illness, presence of psychotic features, and medication usage are unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between these factors and auditory ERP measures in BD patients.

Methods: An auditory 'oddball' discrimination task was used to elicit ERPs from 69 patients with type I BD and 52 healthy controls.