Bipolar Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Bipolar, including details on bipolar disorder, symptoms, treatment, depression, medication.

Identification of molecular mechanisms underlying mood stabilization through genome-wide gene expression profiling.

Zhou R, Zarate CA, Manji HK

Laboratory of Molecular Pathophysiology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.

although kraepelin described bipolar disorder (bd) to have a relatively good prognosis (kraepelin, 1921), more recent studies have clearly shown that this may only represent the situation for a minority of subjects afflicted with this devastating illness; thus, a number of studies and analyses have now shown that for a large percentage of patients, outcome is quite poor, with high rates of relapse, chronicity, lingering residual symptoms, subsyndromes, cognitive and functional impairment, and psychosocial disability (judd et al., 2002, 2003; tohen et al., 2003; zarate et al., 2000). furthermore, suicide is estimated to be the cause of death in up to ~15% of individuals with mood disorders. in addition to suicide, many other deleterious health-related effects are increasingly being recognized (kupfer, 2005). the costs associated with disability and premature death represent an economic burden of tens of billions of dollars annually in the united states alone. it is, thus, not altogether surprising that the global burden of disease study has identified mood disorders among the leading causes of disability worldwide, and as illnesses that are likely to represent an increasingly greater health, societal, and economic problem in the coming years (simon, 2003).

Published 6 October 2005 in Int J Neuropsychopharmacol.
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