Some fairly obvious distinctions between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

In examining the ratio of 'famous' individuals with bipolar disorder to tho se with schizophrenia, it is evident that the ratio greatly favors those wi th bipolar disorder, suggesting that schizophrenia somehow precludes expert performance or high-level accomplishment. Why might this be so? One possib le explanation lies in neurocognitive findings. In this review, I suggest t hat patients with schizophrenia perform consistently worse than patients wi th bipolar disorder on a variety of higher level cognitive tasks (though bi polar patients themselves often evince impairment in comparison to healthy controls). Working memory, in particular, appears to discriminate between t he groups. However, questions remain, including the effects of state and me dications, and the conclusion that I reach does not exclude the possibility that the two disorders share some but not all etiologic or pathophysiologi c features. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.