bipolar disorder

New gene variant may explain psychotic features in bipolar disorder
03/07/2013 - 10:43

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found an explanation for why the level of kynurenic acid (KYNA) is higher in the brains of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disease with psychosis. The study, which is published in the scientific periodical Molecular Psychiatry, identifies a gene variant associated with an increased production of KYNA.

 

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Functional brain imaging identifies risk for bipolar disorder
12/29/2012 - 08:06

Researchers have used brain imaging technology to show that young people with a known genetic risk of bipolar but no clinical signs of the condition have clear and quantifiable differences in brain activity when compared to controls.

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Replicating Risk Genes in Bipolar Disorder
10/15/2012 - 07:01

Scientists at King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry have now performed one of the largest ever genetic replication studies of bipolar affective disorder, with 28,000 subjects recruited from 36 different research centers. Their findings provide compelling evidence that the chromosome 3p21.1 locus contains a common genetic risk for bipolar disorder, the PBRM1 gene.

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Scientists Pinpoint Gene Variations Linked to Higher Risk of Bipolar Disorder
10/10/2012 - 14:10

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified small variations in a number of genes that are closely linked to an increased risk of bipolar disorder, a mental illness that affects nearly six million Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Making Sense Out of the Biological Matrix of Bipolar Disorder
08/20/2012 - 09:47

The more that we understand the brain, the more complex it becomes. The same can be said about the genetics and neurobiology of psychiatric disorders. For “Mendelian” disorders, like Huntington disease, mutation of a single gene predictably produces a single clinical disorder, following relatively simple genetic principals. Compared to Mendelian disorders, understanding bipolar disorder has been extremely challenging. Its biology is not well understood and its genetics are complex.

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Ketamine Improved Bipolar Depression within Minutes
05/30/2012 - 06:12

A group of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health, led by Dr. Carlos Zarate, previously found that a single dose of ketamine produced rapid antidepressant effects in depressed patients with bipolar disorder. They have now replicated that finding in an independent group of depressed patients, also with bipolar disorder.

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