The aim was to investigate the cognitive abnormalities in healthy individuals (No Axis I or II disorders) at risk for bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ)

Participants were 17 BD-R, 15 SZ-R and 23 controls. All participants underwent assessment of IQ, working, verbal memory and learning, visuospatial memory, verbal and visual recall and recognition. Lack of lifetime Axis I and II disorders was screened using Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and symptomatology was assessed with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS).

No difference was found in IQ. The SZ-R underperformed compared to BD-R and controls in working memory. The SZ-R had increased number of intrusions but did not differ from the BD-R in short delay. The SZ-R showed impairment in long term recall. No effect of learning was found. SZ-R and BD-R underperformed compared to controls in visuospatial memory. SZ-R showed long term memory deficits with higher overall forgetting scores in both visual and verbal tests compared to BD-R and controls. The BD relatives were able to retain more verbal items but comparable visual items to SZ-R. Effect of BPRS total score was found only for BD-R across all measures.

BD-R do not show deficits compared to controls in the dorsal prefrontal cortex (DPFC) like the SZ-R. The SZ-R show impairments in fronto temporal networks that are preserved in BD-R supporting deficits in semantic categories in both encoding and retrieval whereas impairment shown in BD-R may be mainly attributed to the effect of symptoms.