Altered Risk-Taking Behavior in Early-Stage Bipolar Disorder With a History of Psychosis.

Altered risk-taking propensity is an important determinant of functional impairment in bipolar disorder. However, prior studies primarily assessed patients with chronic illness, and risk-taking has not been evaluated in the early illness course. This study investigated risk-taking behavior in 39 euthymic early-stage bipolar disorder patients aged 16-40 years who were treated within 3 years from their first-episode mania with psychotic features and 36 demographically-matched healthy controls using the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), a well-validated risk-taking performance-based paradigm requiring participants to make responses for cumulative gain at increasing risk of loss.