Science News about Bipolar Disorder

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NIH Study Shows People with Serious Mental Illnesses Can Lose Weight: Press Release • March 21, 2013

Losing weight is challenging for everyone. It can be particularly difficult for someone with a serious mental illness. An NIMH-funded clinical study proves that a modified diet and exercise program can work for people with serious mental illnesses. Participants lost 7 pounds more than controls—and continued to lose weight.
Five Major Mental Disorders Share Genetic Roots: Science Update • March 01, 2013

Five major mental disorders share some of the same genetic risk factors, the largest genome-wide study of its kind has found.
Rate of Bipolar Symptoms Among Teens Approaches That of Adults: Science Update • June 18, 2012

National survey data finds that the rate of bipolar symptoms in teens is similar to that found in adults, indicating that bipolar disorder often begins in adolescence.
Pattern Recognition Technology May Help Predict Future Mental Illness in Teens: Science Update • April 02, 2012

Computer programs that automatically spot patterns in data may help predict a person’s risk for future mental disorders.
Gene Regulator in Brain’s Executive Hub Tracked Across Lifespan – NIH study: Press Release • February 02, 2012

For the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain’s executive hub. Among key findings of the study by National Institutes of Health scientists: genes implicated in schizophrenia and autism turn out to be members of a select club of genes in which regulatory activity peaks during an environmentally-sensitive critical period in development.
Atypical Antipsychotic More Effective than Older Drugs in Treating Childhood Mania, but Side Effects Can Be Serious: Science Update • January 11, 2012

The antipsychotic medication risperidone is more effective for initial treatment of mania in children diagnosed with bipolar disorder compared to other mood stabilizing medications, but it carries the potential for serious metabolic side effects, according to an NIMH-funded study published online ahead of print January 2, 2012, in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
International Impact of Bipolar Disorder Highlights Need for Recognition and Better Treatment Availability: Science Update • March 07, 2011

The severity and impact of bipolar disorder and bipolar-like symptoms are similar across international boundaries, according to a study partially funded by NIMH.
Most Children with Rapidly Shifting Moods Don’t Have Bipolar Disorder: Science Update • November 30, 2010

Relatively few children with rapidly shifting moods and high energy have bipolar disorder, though such symptoms are commonly associated with the disorder. Instead, most of these children have other types of mental disorders, according to an NIMH-funded study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on October 5, 2010.
Rapid Antidepressant Works by Boosting Brain’s Connections: Science Update • September 09, 2010

An experimental drug that lifts depression in hours likely works by rapidly stimulating connections between brain cells, a study in rats has revealed. The drug, called ketamine, quickly generated such synapses in a brain circuit implicated in human depression by triggering a key enzyme.
Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder May Go Undiagnosed in Some Adults with Major Depression: Science Update • August 16, 2010

Nearly 40 percent of people with major depression may also have subthreshold hypomania, a form of mania that does not fully meet current diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, according to a new NIMH-funded study. The study was published online ahead of print August 15, 2010, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Experimental Medication Lifts Depression Symptoms in Bipolar Disorder Within an Hour: Science Update • August 06, 2010

People with treatment-resistant bipolar disorder experienced relief from symptoms of depression in as little as 40 minutes after an intravenous dose of the anesthetic medication ketamine in a preliminary study; while the patient group was small, this work adds to evidence that compounds in the class to which ketamine belongs have potential as rapid and effective medications for depression, including bipolar depression.
Imaging Studies Help Pinpoint Child Bipolar Circuitry: Science Update • April 08, 2010

A series of imaging studies are revealing that the brain works differently in youth with bipolar disorder (BD) than in chronically irritable children who are often diagnosed with pediatric BD.
Genes and Circuitry, Not Just Clinical Observation, to Guide Classification for Research: Science Update • January 28, 2010

NIMH is launching a long-term project aimed at ultimately improving treatment and prevention by studying classification of mental illness, based on genetics and neuroscience in addition to clinical observation. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project is not intended to replace psychiatry’s existing diagnostic system for practitioners and will proceed in an independent direction, said Bruce Cuthbert, Ph.D., Director of the NIMH Division of Adult Translational Research, who is directing the effort. By taking a fresh look – without preconceived categories – the project aims to improve the validity of classification for researchers.
Same Genes Suspected in Both Depression and Bipolar Illness: Science Update • January 28, 2010

Researchers, for the first time, have pinpointed a genetic hotspot that confers risk for both bipolar disorder and depression. People with either of these mood disorders were significantly more likely to have risk versions of genes at this site than healthy controls. One of the genes, which codes for part of a cell’s machinery that tells genes when to turn on and off, was also found to be over-expressed in the executive hub of bipolar patients’ brains, making it a prime suspect. The results add to mounting evidence that major mental disorders overlap at the molecular level.
Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Share Genetic Roots: Press Release • July 01, 2009

A trio of genome-wide studies – collectively the largest to date – has pinpointed a vast array of genetic variation that cumulatively may account for at least one third of the genetic risk for schizophrenia. One of the studies traced schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in part, to the same chromosomal neighborhoods.
Symptoms Persist as Bipolar Children Grow Up: Science Update • October 27, 2008
Bipolar disorder (BD) identified in childhood often persisted into adulthood in the first large follow-up study of its kind.
New Study to Evaluate Ways to Control Metabolic Side Effects of Antipsychotics: Science Update • October 01, 2008
A new NIMH-funded grant will examine ways to control the metabolic side effects associated with the use of the newer atypical antipsychotic medications in children with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Family-Focused Therapy Effective in Treating Depressive Episodes of Bipolar Youth: Science Update • September 01, 2008
Adolescents with bipolar disorder who received a nine-month course of family-focused therapy (FFT) recovered more quickly from depressive episodes and stayed free of depression for longer periods than a control group, according to an NIMH-funded study published September 2008 in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Largest Study of Its Kind Implicates Gene Abnormalities in Bipolar Disorder: Press Release • August 18, 2008
The largest genetic analysis of its kind to date for bipolar disorder has implicated machinery involved in the balance of sodium and calcium in brain cells.
Mice Expressing Human Genes Bred to Help Unravel Mental Disorders: Science Update • June 26, 2008
New mouse strains engineered to express human genes related to mental disorders are being developed under a recently-launched grant program from NIMH’s Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science.
Potential New Target Found for Developing Medications to Treat Bipolar Disorder: Science Update • June 20, 2008
Medications that target the protein BAG1, which regulates a process that can trigger symptoms in people who have bipolar disorder, may offer a new way of treating the disease, according to NIMH scientists.
New NIMH Research to Test Innovative Treatments for Children with ADHD: Science Update • June 05, 2008
Two new grants funded by NIMH will focus on novel and innovative approaches to treating children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Imaging Identifies Brain Regions and Chemicals Underlying Mood Disorders; May Lead to Better Treatments: Science Update • May 06, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC, May 6 — Recently developed imaging techniques allow the mapping of the brain circuits and chemical systems believed responsible for a range of mood abnormalities including depression and bipolar disorder, and hold promise for improved treatments, scientists say.
Bipolar Youths’ Misreading of Faces May be Risk Marker for Illness: Science Update • March 04, 2008
Youngsters with pediatric bipolar disorder and healthy peers who have first-degree relatives with bipolar disorder share the same difficulty labeling facial emotions, NIMH researchers have discovered. Reporting in the February 2008 online edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the scientists suggest that the facial emotion recognition impairment might be part of an inherited predisposition to the illness.
Tomorrow’s Antidepressants: Skip the Serotonin Boost?: Science Update • February 14, 2008
New research adds to evidence of potentially better molecular targets in the brain to treat depression and other mental disorders, according to NIMH-funded scientists.
Faster-Acting Medications for Bipolar Disorder’s Manic Phase May Be Feasible: Science Update • January 23, 2008
Scientists may be able to develop faster-acting medications for the manic phase of bipolar disorder, new research shows.
Mood Disorders Predict Later Substance Abuse Problems: Science Update • January 09, 2008
People with manic symptoms and bipolar disorder type II are at significant risk of later developing an alcohol abuse or dependence problem, a long-term study conducted in Switzerland confirms. The study was published in the January 2008 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Bipolar Disorder Phenome Database May Aid Search for Related Genes: Science Update • October 02, 2007
Early findings from the recently launched Bipolar Disorder Phenome Database were published in the August 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Manic Phase of Bipolar Disorder Benefits from Breast Cancer Medication: Press Release • September 12, 2007
The medication tamoxifen, best known as a treatment for breast cancer, dramatically reduces symptoms of the manic phase of bipolar disorder more quickly than many standard medications for the mental illness, a new study shows.
Rates of Bipolar Diagnosis in Youth Rapidly Climbing, Treatment Patterns Similar to Adults: Press Release • September 03, 2007
The number of visits to a doctor's office that resulted in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents has increased by 40 times over the last decade, reported researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).