Mood Disorders

Mood is a generalized and persistent emotional state subjectively experienced with a negative or positive connotation, reported by the subject and observed by others. It can present pathological modifications, and this represents the main and primary clinical phenomenon in a group of clinical conditions that are defined mood disorders. Mood disorders include clinical conditions mainly characterized by episodes of patient’s mood change towards one of the two polarities (depression or mania), without the possibility of modulation by the subject himself. Moreover, simultaneously and variably, other clinical features regarding behaviour, cognition, ideation and vegetative functions (sleep, appetite and libido) occur. This complex symptomatology lasts over time and determines a variable degree of impairment of the subject global functioning. Mood disorders have a periodic course, characterized by a succession of cycles, consisting of episodes of acuity and subsequent return to euthymic mood, until the onset of a next episode. According to the DSM-5 classification criteria, mood disorders include: (a) depressive disorders: major depression, dysthymia (or recurrent depressive disorder), mood dysregulation disorder, premenstrual dysphoria; (b) bipolar disorders: bipolar disorder type I, type II and cyclothymia.