Grigorova, Monika; (2024) The relationship between real-life mood and reward processing in bipolar disorder. Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).

Text Thesis_submission_volume1_Grigorova_library.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 November 2025. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Existing theories of bipolar disorder have outlined various factors associated with mood episodes. The cognitive-behavioural model (Mansell et al., 2007) emphasises the role of appraisals of internal states and subsequent behaviours in the escalation of mood. The Behavioural Activation System (BAS) dysregulation model outlines the role of the environment in triggering BAS activation or deactivation which leads to elevated or blunted affect (Johnson & Roberts, 1995). The reward hypersensitivity model (Nusslock & Alloy, 2017) makes similar predictions and builds on findings from the field of neuroscience to propose that differences in reward sensitivity may play a role in mood fluctuation in bipolar disorder. Recent findings on the two-directional relationship of mood and reward-processing (Eldar et al., 2016) have contributed to new hypotheses related to the role of surprises (“reward prediction errors”) and to the biasing effect of mood on reward perception and expectation in driving mood fluctuation in bipolar disorder (Mason et al., 2017). By reviewing the above models, this Conceptual Introduction outlines the current state of our theoretical understanding of mood in bipolar disorder and motives the hypotheses of this research project.

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