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In today's times, scientists are testing new ideas and treatments for not only depression but bipolar disorder.  Referred to as manic-depression, this is a disease that has not had a successful medication developed specifically for it since the development of lithium over 50 years ago.  Occurring in 1 out 25 adults, bipolar disorder has a median age of 25 years that can begin in early childhood or in the 50s. With bipolar disorder considered the sixth leading cause of disability in the world, new treatments for it are an ongoing process to treat a disease—a disease that can cause a 9.2 year reduction in the individual' s life span or can cause one-in-five patients to commit suicide.  

THE SUCCESS OF 50-YEAR OLD ­­LITHIUM

Lithium is considered one of the most common treatments for bipolar disorder. Under the brand names Lithotabs, Eskalith, Lithobid, and Lithonate, lithium successfully reduces the severity and frequency of mania and relieves bipolar depression. Probably its most significant studies involve its ability to reduce suicide risk and prevent future manic episodes.  For these reasons, it is used both between episodes and also as a maintenance therapy. ­

Acting on a person's central nervous system—the spinal cord and brain—lithium allows patients to have more control over their emotions and reduces "extremes" in their behavior. Taking approximately two weeks to begin working in the system, the consumption of lithium requires regular blood tests as it can affect kidney function. Drinking eight to twelve glasses of fluid a day and consuming a normal amount of salt is advised, as both will affect the lithium levels in the blood. Unfortunately, about 75% of people who are on lithium develop side effects—both major and minor types.

NEW BIPOLAR DISORDER TREATMENTS

New treatments are involving such things as seasickness patches or mixture of drugs/treatments—lithium, anticonvulsant medication, and antipsychotics with patient education and psychological therapy. It is important to develop new treatments for bipolar disorder because the current medications have serious side effects—tremors, weight gain, a 'druggy feeling, and sleepiness. Also, patients with bipolar disorder stop taking the current medications that are available because it stops the "disease highs" they are used to having.

What is causing the problem with bipolar disorder research is that the scientists do not know what is behind the illness, other than manic and depressive episodes come from an underlying chronic brain disease. This has prevented them from developing new drugs for the treatment of the disease. Even though there are many treatments out there, none were specifically developed for bipolar disorder other than lithium. What has been revealed has been by chance, not by purposeful design.

ACCIDENTAL FINDS

The drug scopolamine—a treatment to prevent people from getting seasick or carsick—was discovered to work for bipolar disorder by pure accident. It was previously studied as a treatment for memory and attention improvement in depressed people, with the drug given to the patients intravenously in order to find a correct dosage for a brain-imaging study. But when the drug was given, the patients immediately began to feel less depressed the night after the injections were given, lasting for weeks into months. The study by Drevets and Furey changed their research right away to begin testing the drug on depression, with the preliminary results published in October 2006.  Now, a study by Furey is using the scopolamine skin patches for motion sickness to treat depression and bipolar disorder in individuals.

Another 2001 "accidental" study at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., ended up demonstrating that depressed bipolar patients suddenly felt better when their brains were scanned for a study of brain chemistry. By 2004, scientists had published a conclusion that depression could be lifted through electric fields produced by brains scans. But overall, scientists are now finding that the real key to unlocking bipolar disorder lies within DNA research. More and more scientific journals are publishing the results of DNA analysis, with massive work implicating many variants in bipolar disorder.