Prospects for the development of animal models of bipolar disorder

Abstract

Although it is prevalent in a relatively small fraction of the population (between 1 and 2%), bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe and chronic mental illness (Belmaker, 2004). Phenotypical expression of the disorder is complex and alternates between depressed phases, mania, hypomania, and so-called “mixed states.” Longitudinal studies of patients of with bipolar I (BPI) disorder show that they had symptoms of the disorder for about half of their time (Judd et al., 2002). Further, depressive symptoms predominated over manic/hypomanic symptoms or cycling/mixed symptoms (Judd et al., 2002). Pharmacological agents are the mainstay of treatment approaches but psychological therapies are utilized par..