Mouth asymmetry upon repeating words. A controlled study of bipolarly depressive patients in the remitted euthymic state.

In view of previous research concerning the lateral bias of hand movements accompanying speech, it was postulated that patients with bipolar depression should differ from normal controls with respect to the asymmetry of mouth opening when repeating speech sounds. This hypothesis was confirmed. Our patient group, consisting of 29 remitted euthymic out-patients, did not show the greater right-sided mouth opening characteristic of the gender-matched normal controls.