Conclusions
In sum, the results of our study suggest that euthymic BD patients present selective gaze processing impairment, limited to the sensitivity to intention and emotion: compared to healthy controls, BD patients were impaired at judging mental state from images of the eyes, but showed normal susceptibility to direction of gaze as an attentional cue. It is important to note that in the present study euthymic BD poor performance on the reading the mind task could not be attributed to demographic factors such as gender, age, or education, as BD and control groups were matched on these variables. The impairment in judging mental state from images of the eyes could account at least partially for the higher levels of interpersonal problems generally observed in euthymic BD patients. Therefore, these individuals might clearly benefit from an appropriate early application of interventions aimed to avoid or limit the incidence of these deficits. In fact, these social dysfunctions in stabilized bipolar patients may hinder a full functional recovery, but since now have proved unresponsive to common psychotropic medications.