Bipolar and Depression

PURPOSE: Safe firearm storage practices are associated with a lower risk of self-inflicted injury and death. Whether such practices and relevant beliefs differ between households of adolescents with and without mental illness is unknown. METHODS: We used survey and administrative data to perform a two-stage cross-sectional study of parents/guardians of adolescents who were 11-17 years, enrolled in a managed care plan in 2004 and living in a household with a firearm...

Mood disorder patients frequently experience difficulty making decisions and may make sub-optimal decisions with adverse life consequences. However, patients' styles for decision-making when ill and after treatment have received little study to date. We assessed healthy controls (HC, n = 69) and patients with major depressive disorder (MDD, n = 61) or bipolar disorder (BP, n = 26) in a current major depressive episode using the Melbourne Decision-making Questionnaire. A subset of participants was re-evaluated after completing six weeks of pharmacotherapy...

Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of patient populations and genetic linkage assessments have demonstrated that the ankyrin-G (AnkG) gene is involved in neuropsychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease, but it remains unclear how the genetic variants of AnkG contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we generated AnkG hemizygous mice using the gene trapping approach. Homozygous AnkG was embryonically lethal. Western blotting and real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assessments of wild type (WT) and AnkG (+/-) mutant mice demonstrated a 50% reduction of ANKG levels, at the gene and protein levels, in AnkG hemizygous mice...

BACKGROUND: Recent studies found abnormal biochemical metabolism and executive cognitive deficits in acute bipolar disorder (BD). However, the evidence concerning in euthymic BD is limited. Thus, a comparison between acute and euthymic BD is conductive to better understanding the association between cognition and the outcome of neuroimaging. This study sought to investigate the relationship between the executive function and the biochemical metabolism in acute- and euthymic-episode BD patients and delineate the prominent endophenotype of BD...

INTRODUCTION: Current classification of bipolar disorder (BD) in type i or type ii, however useful, may be insufficient to provide relevant clinical information in some patients. As a result, complementary classifications are being proposed, like the predominant polarity (PP) based, which is defined as a clear tendency in the patient to present relapses in the manic or depressive poles. METHODS: We carried out a search in PubMed and Web of Science databases, following the Preferred Items for Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses -PRISMA- guidelines, to identify studies about BD reporting PP...

BACKGROUND: Mixed mood states in bipolar disorder are difficult to treat and when present indicate worse illness trajectories. Several medications are US Food and Drug Administration approved to treat mixed episodes; however, the clinical trials have been short term and rarely reported depression response. METHODS: We conducted a 5-month open-label trial examining the tolerability and efficacy of iloperidone for bipolar disorder mixed episodes. RESULTS: Mania and depression scores significantly improved over the course of the study for study completers (ie, 60%-68% improvement for manic symptoms and 41%-49% for depression symptoms)...

In recent years, there was growing interest in postsynaptic density proteins in the central nervous system. Of the most important candidates of this specialized region are proteins belonging to the Homer protein family. This family of scaffolding proteins is suspected to participate in the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases. The present study aims to compare Homer1a expression in the hippocampus and cingulate gyrus of patients with major psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression...

Few studies have compared the prevalence of smoking between patients with bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD) and schizophrenia. This study examined the prevalence of smoking and its relationships with demographic and clinical characteristics, and quality of life (QOL) in patients with these psychiatric disorders. A total of 1,102 inpatients were consecutively screened. Psychopathology and QOL were measured with standardized instruments. The prevalence of current smoking in the whole sample was 16...

Several lines of evidence implicate serotonin in the etiology of multiple psychiatric disorders, especially mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Much of our current understanding of biological mechanisms underlying serotonergic alterations in mood disorders comes from animal studies. Innovation in induced pluripotent stem cell and transdifferentiation technologies for deriving neurons from adult humans has enabled the study of disease-relevant cellular phenotypes in vitro...

Lithium is an established treatment for bipolar disorder and an augmenting agent for treatment-resistant depression. Despite awareness of renal adverse effects, including chronic kidney disease, for the past five decades, there has been a lack of research evidence. This has led to debates around the existence and magnitude of the risk. This article discusses the current evidence base regarding the link between lithium and chronic kidney disease, monitoring of renal functions and its clinical implications.

Aims and method The mean delay for bipolar disorder diagnosis is 10 years. Identification of patients with previous hypomania is challenging, sometimes resulting in misdiagnosis. The aims of this study were: (a) to estimate the proportion of primary care patients with depression currently taking antidepressants who have undiagnosed bipolar disorder and (b) to compare a brief 3-item manic features questionnaire with the Hypomania Checklist (HCL-13). The sample comprised patients with a recorded diagnosis of depression, either on long-term antidepressant therapy or with previous multiple courses of antidepressants...

BACKGROUND: The influence of gender on inpatient treatment patterns in bipolar patients is unclear. The aim of this study is to examine whether differences in length of stay and frequency of inpatient episodes, according to ICD-10 bipolar disorder (BD)-subgroups, exist between men and women. METHODS: All episodes of a manic (F31.0-2), depressive (F31.3-5) or mixed (F31.6) subtype of BD during an inpatient stay in an Austrian hospital in the period of 2001-2014 were included in this study...

Suicide remains a clear, present and increasing public health problem, despite being a potentially preventable tragedy. Its incidence is particularly high in people with overt or un(der)diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Objective and precise identification of individuals at risk, ways of monitoring response to treatments and novel preventive therapeutics need to be discovered, employed and widely deployed. We sought to investigate whether blood gene expression biomarkers for suicide (that is, a 'liquid biopsy' approach) can be identified that are more universal in nature, working across psychiatric diagnoses and genders, using larger cohorts than in previous studies...

BACKGROUND: Major depressive episodes with psychotic features are more common in bipolar disorder than in major depressive disorder; however, there is little information on the optimal treatment for bipolar depression with psychotic features. CASE PRESENTATION: The patient was a 69-year-old man. At the age of 66, he was admitted to the hospital for the treatment of bipolar depression with psychotic features. He was treated with a combination therapy of antipsychotics and antidepressants during long-term hospitalization...

OBJECTIVE: While research on substance abuse has largely focused on people who have a single substance use disorder (SUD), many people abuse multiple substances. Studies have yet to examine the distinctive characteristics of patients diagnosed with more than 1 SUD and how those with polysubstance use disorder (PSUD) differ from those with a single SUD. METHODS: National Veterans Health Administration data from fiscal year 2012 were used to compare veterans diagnosed 1 SUD to veterans diagnosed with 2-3, and >3 SUDs on demographic characteristics, psychiatric and medical diagnoses, medical and psychiatric service utilization, and psychotropic medication fills...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the current study was to inform ongoing attempts to identify clinically meaningful subcategories of auditory verbal hallucination (AVH), and to evaluate evidence that might pertain to the suitability of current psychological interventions for people with bipolar disorder (BD) who experience psychotic symptoms. METHODS: A comprehensive synthesis of findings on the phenomenology of AVH and delusions in BD is included, alongside a critical review of clinical and cognitive correlates...

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of psychoeducation in serum levels of BDNF, NGF and GDNF in young adults presenting bipolar disorder (BD). This is a randomized clinical trial including 39 young adults (18-29 years) diagnosed with BD through the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-CV). Participants were randomized in two treatment groups: usual treatment (medication) and combined intervention (medication plus psychoeducation). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and severity of manic and hypomanic symptoms was evaluated through the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS)...

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the sequence of onsets in patients affected by comorbid alcohol use and bipolar disorder. This study examines the risk factors associated with their co-occurrence and order of onset. METHOD: The demographic, clinical, and temperament characteristics as well as the course of illness were analyzed within our sample of 1090 DSM-IV bipolar I manic patients. Our sample was categorized according to the presence of comorbid alcohol use disorder and the sequence of onsets of bipolar and alcohol use disorders i...

This article describes psychiatric emergencies in pregnant women. The perinatal period is a time of psychiatric vulnerability. Up to 1 in 6 pregnant women experience major depressive disorder, and 1 in 4 pregnant women with bipolar disorder experience mood exacerbation. We discuss the management of severe mental illness in pregnancy, risk to mother and child of untreated psychiatric illness in pregnancy, risk of relapse of psychiatric disorders in pregnancy with medication discontinuation, psychopharmacologic considerations of teratogenicity and other fetal adverse effects, acute agitation in the pregnant patient, suicidality in pregnancy, and emergency considerations related to substance use disorders...