Every day, millions of people with bipolar disorder take medicines that help keep them from swinging into manic or depressed moods. But just how these drugs produce their effects is still a mystery. Now, a new University of Michigan Medical School study of brain tissue helps reveal what might actually be happening. And further research using stem cells programmed to act like brain cells is already underway. Using genetic analysis, the new study suggests that certain medications may help “normalize” the activity of a number of genes involved in communication between brain cells. It is published in the current issue of Bipolar Disorders. The study involved brain tissue from deceased people with and without bipolar disorder, which the U-M team analyzed to see how often certain genes were activated, or expressed. Funding support came from the National Institutes of Health and the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Fund.
