Dissimilar social cognition signatures in remitted schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In the light of shared genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, their comparative profile of social cognition (SC) performance - an intermittent phenotype and determinant of functional outcome - is poorly understood. Using data from 160 individuals, we identify unique patterns of composite and domain-specific SC-abilities between these groups after controlling for their neurocognition. Individuals with schizophrenia and not bipolar disorder demonstrated deficits in composite SC-measures, which were not associated with their functional status. While patients with bipolar disorder had significantly lower scores on emotion recognition, they outperformed the healthy and schizophrenia groups on the second-order theory of mind.