Association of childhood trauma with cognitive impairment and structural brain alterations in remitted patients with bipolar disorder

•Limited insight into neurobiological abnormalities underlying cognitive impairment in bipolar disorder•Participants underwent neuropsychological assessment and magnetic resonance imaging.•Cognitively impaired patients with bipolar disorder show lower cerebral white matter.•Cognitively impaired bipolar disorder patients also show grey matter abnormalities.•Total volume of cerebral white matter correlated with cognitive performance.•Cerebral white matter reduction scaled with higher levels of childhood trauma.