Abstract. The current study is about cognitive dysfunctions in patients with bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia and is focused on the genetic markers of these cognitive dysfunctions. 132 people are investigated and divided in the following groups: patients with schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder, their healthy relatives and controls without relatives with psychiatric disorder. The cognitive status is investigated with a test battery, which contains Trail Making Test (ТМТ-А and В), Digit Symbol Test (DST) and Verbal Fluency Test (VFT). Demographic and clinical data are collected with semi structured interview – Diagnostic Interview for Psychosis (DIP). The genetic analysis is conducted in collaboration with the Centre of Molecular Medicine in MU – Sofia. The statistics is used to check the distribution, to compare mean values and also correlation analysis, regression analysis, logistic regression and other methods are used. The cognitive dysfunctions are more pronounced in schizophrenic patients than in patients with bipolar affective disorder. The healthy relatives of the patients with schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder have significant differences in the cognitive capacity compared to controls, which have no relatives with psychiatric disorder. Some of the investigated genetic polymorphisms have a great impact on the cognition.

Key words: bipolar affective disorder, cognitive dysfunctions, genetic markers, polymorphisms

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