Impaired visuospatial working memory but preserved attentional control in bipolar disorder

While WM was disturbed in PBD, attentional prioritization of salient targets and distractors, as well as the utilization of external top-down cues, were not compromised. Thus, the control of attentional selection appears to be intact at least for our specific manipulation of this cognitive construct. These findings provide valuable clues for models of WM dysfunction in PBD by suggesting that later stages of WM encoding, such as WM consolidation, are likely primarily impaired, while selective attention is not a main source of impairment.