Can Predict the Effect of Lithium In Bipolar Patients
By looking at brain cells of patient with bipolar disorder, it is possible to predict if lithium treatment will be effective. This finding were recently published in Nature.
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In UC San Diego Health we can read about the finding, published in the October 28 online issue of Nature - Differential responses to lithium in hyperexcitable neurons from patients with bipolar disorder. An international team of scientists headed by researchers at Salk Institute for Biological Studies and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have been involved in the study. They have taken skin biopsy from patients with bipolar disorder and from healthy, and using stem cell technology to produce brain cells.
-The study is among the first to show at a cellular level how the bipolar disorder affects the brain, including why some patients respond to treatment with lithium while others don’t, replies Ketil J. Ødegaard, which is on of the co-authors, and leader of the Nowegian board at the multicenter study.
