Psychiatry News & Articles

1 A systematic review of the evidence on the treatment of rapid cycling bipolar disorder Bipolar Disorders, February 28, 2013
Fountoulakis KN et al. - Rapid cycling is associated with longer illness duration and greater illness severity in bipolar disorder. The aim of the present study was to review the existing published randomized trials investigating the effect of treatment on patients with rapid cycling bipolar disorder. The literature examining the pharmacological treatment of rapid cycling is still sparse and therefore there is no clear consensus with respect to its optimal pharmacological management. ...

2 Mood lability among offspring of parents with bipolar disorder and community controls Bipolar Disorders, April 4, 2013
Birmaher B et al. - Early identification of bipolar disorder (BP) symptomatology is crucial for improving the prognosis of this illness. Increased mood lability has been reported in BP. However, mood lability is ubiquitous across psychiatric disorders and may be a marker of severe psychopathology and not specific to BP. To clarify this issue, this study examined the prevalence of mood lability and its components in offspring of BP parents and offspring of community control parents ...

3 Does risk for bipolar disorder heighten the disconnect between objective and subjective appraisals of cognition? Journal of Affective Disorders, May 15, 2013
Rodriguez C et al. - The present study sought to test whether risk for bipolar disorder in a younger, college-aged cohort of individuals would be associated with lower performance in cognitive ability yet higher self-appraisal of cognitive functioning. Results add to a growing body of evidence indicating that overconfidence may be part of the cognitive profile of individuals at risk for bipolar disorder. Methods Participants (N=128) completed an objective measure ...

4 Periventricular white matter integrity and cortisol levels in healthy controls and in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder: An exploratory analysis Journal of Affective Disorders, May 16, 2013
Macritchie KAN et al. - bipolar disorder is associated with both white matter abnormalities and hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenal axis dysfunction. In a post-hoc analysis of diffusion tensor data, the relationship between cortisol levels and white matter structural integrity was explored in healthy controls and in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder. The preliminary data show an inverse relationship between evening cortisol levels and a measure of periventricular white matter ...

5 Efficacy and safety of fluoxetine monotherapy in bipolar depression: a systematic review Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy, May 21, 2013
Martinotti C et al. – In the present review, the authors focused on efficacy and safety of fluoxetine monotherapy in order to identify published randomized double–blind trials and open–label trials, written in English, reporting the outcome of fluoxetine treatment in depressed bipolar patients. Fluoxetine showed to be efficacious in bipolar depression, confirming its well–known activity in major depressive episodes, with a low percentage of mood switch, despite the general view that ...

6 A UK panel consensus on the initiation of aripiprazole for the treatment of bipolar mania International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, February 13, 2013
Dratcu L et al. - The objective of this consensus paper is to provide practical guidance on why and how aripiprazole, with its distinct pharmacological and side effect profile, should be used for treatment of acute bipolar mania. Aripiprazole is an effective first-line treatment for acute bipolar mania with a favorable safety/tolerability profile.

7 A positive relationship between ambient temperature and bipolar disorder identified using a national cohort of psychiatric inpatients Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, February 1, 2013
Sung TI et al. - This study characterizes the positive relationship between daily temperature and bipolar disorder in a cohort of Taiwanese psychiatric inpatients. Understanding the increase of bipolar disorder admissions occurring in extreme heat is important in the preparation and prevention of massive recurrences of bipolar episodes.

8 Neurological soft signs discriminate schizophrenia from major depression but not bipolar disorder Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, February 7, 2013
Zhao Q et al. - Neurological soft signs (NSS) are minor neurological abnormalities, including motor, sensory, and inhibitory dysfunction. Schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders are associated with a higher prevalence of NSS. However, the relationships between NSS and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression are unclear. The present study aimed to examine the specificity of NSS among these three clinical groups. NSS are not unique to schizophrenia, but are also ...

9 Brain gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) abnormalities in bipolar disorder Bipolar Disorders, May 3, 2013
Brady RO et al. - Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) abnormalities have been implicated in bipolar disorder. However, due to discrepant studies measuring postmortem, cerebrospinal fluid, plasma, and in vivo brain levels of GABA, the nature of these abnormalities is unclear. Using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the authors investigated tissue levels of GABA in the anterior cingulate cortex and parieto-occipital cortex of participants with bipolar disorder and healthy ...

10 Seasonal variation of manic and depressive symptoms in bipolar disorder Bipolar Disorders, May 3, 2013
Akhter A et al. - Analyses of seasonal variation of manic and depressive symptoms in bipolar disorder in retrospective studies examining admission data have yielded conflicting results. The authors examined seasonal variation of mood symptoms in a prospective cohort with long-term follow-up: the Collaborative Depression Study (CDS). Significant seasonal variation exists in bipolar disorder, with manic/hypomanic symptoms peaking around the fall equinox and depressive symptoms ...