Researchers Make Great Leap in Understanding Bipolar Disorder

This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio.

(April 19, 2007) -- TONY EASTLEY: Australian researchers say they've identified what appear to be abnormalities in the workings of the brain of people with bipolar disorder.

The scientists say the finding could lead to the development of a test for the condition, potentially easing the suffering of thousands of people.

Barbara Miller reports.

BARBARA MILLER: The term bipolar disorder is well known, but scientists say the condition is often misunderstood.

Professor Gin Malhi from the Department of Psychological Medicine at Sydney's North Shore Hospital.

GIN MALHI: Unfortunately, bipolar disorder overlaps both with depression because of it's lows, and with other illnesses, psychological illnesses because of its highs.

And as a consequence, it's often missed or misdiagnosed.

BARBARA MILLER: Medical practitioners make judgments on whether a patient has bipolar disorder by use of observation and a checklist.

But Professor Malhi, a psychiatrist, and his colleague Jim Lagopoulos, a neuroscientist, say by using neuro-imaging they've now identified clear differences in the workings of the brain of people with bipolar, which could lead to the development of a test for the disorder.

GIN MALHI: It's mainly emotion that we were looking at and initially we used images which used sad and happy situations, but the study specifically that we looked at more recently used fear and disgust.

Disgust seems to be a much more complex emotion, and this is where we found those individuals who had bipolar disorder, even though they were well otherwise, were somewhat constrained in their processing and had a very different pattern of processing.

There were also more responsive to the fear stimuli.

BARBARA MILLER: What would it mean for people with bipolar if there was a test?

GIN MALHI: It would be fantastic because what we really are struggling with at the moment is the enormous delay in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder has highs and lows and normally, it starts actually with the lows and so people often get misdiagnosed as having depression, and the delay in diagnosis of bipolar can sometimes be up to a decade, because essentially the diagnosis is reliant on detecting a high.

So that's the difficulty in terms of diagnosis and that's where I think a test like this would be extremely useful.

BARBARA MILLER: It's estimated that at least 100,000 Australians have bipolar disorder. Gin Malhi says many more people may be suffering in silence and could get treatment if a test were available.

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GIN MALHI: Now treatment for bipolar disorder is very sophisticated and the majority of people are very high functioning and I think this is another misconception about bipolar disorder, that it's an illness, which leads to decline in functioning.

In fact, many people with bipolar disorder are higher functioning than most, and achieve a lot in their life, and very creative people, excellent business people, excellent minds.

TONY EASTLEY: Professor Gin Malhi from Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. That report by Barbara Miller.

By Barbara Miller
Source: ABC Radio

Last updated: 04/07

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