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Neuron responses to lithium differ among individuals with bipolar disorder

Brain cells responded differently among individuals with bipolar disorder who responded well to lithium compared with those without a treatment response.

“Researchers hadn’t all agreed that there was a cellular cause to bipolar disorder,” Fred H. Gage, PhD, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, said in a press release. “So our study is important validation that the cells of these patients really are different.”

To determine the underlying cause of bipolar disorder, Gage and colleagues reprogrammed skin cells from six individuals with bipolar disorder to become stem cells and then encouraged stem cells to develop into neurons. They compared the neurons from individuals with bipolar disorder with those from healthy individuals.

Of the six individuals with bipolar disorder, three had positive responses to lithium.

Researchers found that neurons of individuals who responded positively to lithium exhibited decreased excitability after lithium exposure, while neurons of individuals with no response to lithium remained hyperexcitable.

“After a few months, it’s possible that this hyperexcitability becomes too much for the cell to handle and it crashes into a less excitable state,” Gage said. “That could signal the shift between the depression and mania that patients experience.”

The study findings require further exploration, according to Jerome Mertens, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

“Now that we have neurons that show differences in excitability, we can use these to screen for better drugs,” Mertens said in the release. – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.