The International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) Annual Conference 2026: Susanna Carella

We're pleased to share that our NCMD member, Susanna Carella, had the opportunity to present her systematic review "Common and Dissociable Reward Processing Dysregulation in Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder", at The International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) 28th Annual Conference, 2026, in Canada last month!

While reward and punishment processing are promising candidate mechanisms in differentiating bipolar disorder (BD) from major depressive disorder (MDD), it is currently unclear which aspects are commonly or differentially affected in these conditions, and how patterns of dissociation between conditions may differ across illness phases. Her systematic review addresses this gap by identifying, summarising, and critically evaluating studies comparing behavioural and neural correlates of reward and punishment processing in BD and MDD across illness phases.

Susanna, PhD candidate at Newcastle University, also has several ongoing projects in this area, including her sub-study in the ASCEnD trial.

Fantastic work, Susanna!