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Review
Lithium: a key to the genetics of bipolar disorder
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* Corresponding author: Gustavo Turecki gustavo.turecki@mcgill.ca
1 McGill Group for Suicide Studies, Douglas Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H4H 1R3, Canada
2 Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada
Genome Medicine 2009, 1:79 doi:10.1186/gm79
Published: 19 August 2009Abstract
Since the 1950s, lithium salts have been the main line of treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), both as a prophylactic and as an episodic treatment agent. Like many psychiatric conditions, BD is genetically and phenotypically heterogeneous, but evidence suggests that individuals who respond well to lithium treatment have more homogeneous clinical and molecular profiles. Response to lithium seems to cluster in families and can be used as a predictor for recurrence of BD symptoms. While molecular studies have provided important information about possible genes involved in BD predisposition or in lithium response, neither the mechanism of action of this drug nor the genetic profile of bipolar disorder is, as yet, completely understood.