Cognitive dysfunction is a core feature in the course of bipolar disorder (BD) and persists during the remission periods. Only few studies valueted separately patients with BDI and BDII.

To analyze the pattern of neurocognitive dysfunction between healthy controls and euthimic patients with BDI and BDII.

27 patients with BD (17 BDI patients and 10 BDII patients, according to DSM IV TR) and 20 controls underwent a neuropsychological battery. The inclusion criteria for the bipolar groups was an Hamilton Rating Scale For Depression's score ≤ 7. The neuropsychological battery consisted of:

1. i) the Mini Mental State Examination

2. ii) The Corsi and the verbal span, to assess the short term memory;

3. iii) the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and the logical memory test, to assess the long term memory;

4. iv) the progressive Raven Matrices, to assess the logical - abstractive capacity

5. v) The frontal assessment battery and the phonetic verbal fluency, to assess the executive functions

6. vi) The continuos performance test to assess the selective attention.

Patients affected by BDI performed significantly worse to controls when the short term spatial memory, the long term verbal memory, logical abstractive capacity, the executive functions and the selective attention were measured (p< 0,05). Patients affected by BDII performed significantly worse (p< 0,05) to controls when the long term verbal memory was measured.

Euthimic Patients with BDI disorder seem to have a more severe cognitive profile respect of BDII patients.