Treatment for depression Blog

Chemical Signature Of Manic Depression Discovered By Scientists

According to a new study, it has been suggested that people with manic depression have a distinct chemical signature in their brains.

As published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, this may also indicate how the mood stabilisers used to treat the disorder counteract the changes in the brain that it appears to cause.

Experts have stated that manic depression, which is also known as bipolar disorder, is a debilitating psychiatric condition often noted by alternating mania and depression, affecting about one in every hundred people worldwide.

Furthermore, they note that even though the reasons why these treatments work are poorly understood, it is known that the condition can be treated relatively effectively using the mood-stabilising drugs lithium and valproic acid.

Background investigation into this report depicts that according to the authors of the new study, from Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, and the National Institutes of Mental Health in the US, they hope that their research will enable a better understanding of the condition and of how it can be treated.

Details emerging from sources of this article depict that the researchers compared postmortem brain tissue samples of people with manic depression with those of age and gender matched controls.

Very tellingly, the researchers' findings lead them to believe that an upset in the balance of different neurotransmitters known as excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters may be central to the disorder.

These neurotransmitters are also said to be which are involved in sending signals in the brain

In addition, the study also suggests that lithium and valproic acid work by restoring the balance of these neurotransmitters in the brain.

Dr Tsz Tsang, one of the authors of the study from the Department of Biomolecular Medicine at Imperial College London, said: "By identifying a distinct biochemical profile in patients with bipolar disorder, our new research provides a valuable insight into the origins and causes of the disease. Moreover, the changes we see in people's metabolic signatures may give a target for drug therapy, allowing us to see how effective a drug is at correcting these changes.

To conclude our report, he adds that: "In this instance, we have already shown that the biochemical changes which valproic acid and lithium bring about in mammalian models represent almost a mirror image of the perturbations in bipolar disorder. This may provide a useful insight to the actions of these treatments and a basis for which to improve therapy in the future."

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posted by Foras Aje @ 11:46 AM