Bipolar Math Subtractions: Mental disorder may spur math problems in teens
By Bruce Bower
The severe psychiatric ailment known as bipolar disorder takes individuals on an emotional roller-coaster ride over dizzying peaks of agitation, euphoria, and grandiose thinking and through valleys of soul-numbing depression. New evidence suggests that an unappreciated facet of bipolar disorder has nothing to do with rampaging emotions. It involves a deterioration of mathematical reasoning, at least among teenagers.
Reasons for the emergence of math difficulties in adolescents who develop bipolar disorder remain unclear, according to a report in the January American Journal of Psychiatry. The illness may affect any of several brain areas that have been implicated in mathematical reasoning, propose Diane C. Lagace of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and her colleagues.