In bipolar disorder, depression is often the neglected stepchild. Mania gets more attention, perhaps because it presents so dramatically. Imagine two bipolar patients in an emergency room: one withdrawn and depressed, sitting quietly, and another ranting and pacing the room. Which one would be seen first?

Get some practical advice on how to diagnosis and treat bipolar disorder, in an interview with Claudia Baldassano, MD, director of the bipolar outpatient program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Most of you would hesitate to put a patient with bipolar I on antidepressants without adding a mood stabilizer, in order to prevent a switch to mania. If this is your clinical practice, you are following the recommendations of the APA consensus guidelines for the treatment of bipolar depression. But the hard data to support the danger of switching is surprisingly weak.

Several past studies have investigated a possible link between infections during pregnancy and psychiatric illness in the offspring. These studies may be biased, however, by poor recall or by a clinical, as opposed to serological, diagnosis of infection in the mother. A recent study attempted to overcome this bias by measuring influenza antibodies—a more precise manner of identifying influenza exposure—drawn from the mothers of bipolar offspring.

A team of scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School studied a line of stem cells derived from patients with bipolar disorder to determine what, if any, differences could be found between these and the cells of people without the disorder.

Bipolar I and II disorder (BD I and II) together affect an estimated 2.5% of US adolescents (Merikangas KR et al, Arch Gen Psychiatry 2012; 68(3):241–251), and there is little argument that they result in significant morbidity.

Although it remains one of our oldest and most effective drugs, lithium has become less popular for the treatment of bipolar disorder in the last two decades.

Editor’s note: Learn more about the work of the Center for Organization, Leadership, and Management Research at www.colmr.research.va.gov.

Finding the right medication or combination of medications for a patient with bipolar disorder is an incredibly important task, as many individuals with bipolar disorder will require life-long treatment with a mood stabilizer.Mood stabilizer treatment goals should include resolving active symptoms of mania or depression, minimizing adverse effects, preventing future...

The clinical presentation of bipolar disorder can vary substantially from patient to patient. However, in all cases, there is impaired functioning in one or more area of life; for example, disruption to school, work, and/or relationships. And in most cases, the affective episodes of bipolar disorder (eg, mania or hypomania,...