New study, what do people think about this?

I saw this on my tumblr feed today, it's about a brain imaging study tested on those with genetic risk, but no clinical symptoms yet. There were apparently observable differences from control groups:

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health ... polar-risk

I believe it. Sounds legit to me.

I'm pretty stoked about it. It looks like this means they might soon be able to just run a brainscan to identify those with the predisposition (and presumably those with the disorder after it's been set off), which would probably help a lot with misdiagnosis, as well as validate it as an actual thing (which, as we all know, some people in this society still don't believe). I've read that it often takes about 10 years to get a proper diagnosis for bipolar, so just having a test like this seems really amazing if they can pin down exactly what to look for.

That is an interesting study. However, the researchers haven't discovered whether or not the abnormal patterns of activity in the brain predict Bipolar Disorder. Instead, they discovered that children and adolescents with a family member have abnormal patterns of activity which could be explained by other factors like differences in the environments the children and adolescents were raised in. Also, the claim of the researchers that "“bipolar is primarily a biological illness" underestimates prenatal and environmental influences like exposure to stress, which we know must play a role otherwise identical twins would always develop Bipolar Disorder.

I got the impression that they actually weren't ignoring that environmental factors played a role; at the end of the article, they mention the possibility of using detection of predisposition to delay or prevent setting BP off, I presume by mitigating stress. The quote about being biological I think you're referencing is this one:

“We know that bipolar is primarily a biological illness with a strong genetic influence but triggers are yet to be understood. Being able to identify young people at risk will enable implementation of early intervention programs, giving them the best chance for a long and happy life,” says Prof Mitchell.

The fact that they mention triggers says to me that the researchers are well aware that environmental factors are important. Of course, while you're right that they can only use inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning until more variables are isolated/studied, the idea of having a conclusive test is still exciting, and could potentially be very helpful. I wonder if they could solve some of the logical grey area by introducing a group of adolescents who had stressful childhoods but didn't develop BP? Who knows. It's interesting to track the research, though.

This is exciting. We're a long way from it, but on the road to, doctors being able to scan a person's brain and determine exactly what's causing that patient to have bipolar symptoms. That will mean getting medicine right on the first try more often. It could even lead to early warnings of coming mood changes.

Like episode prediction? I hadn't thought of that, but that would be really rad! And yeah, the idea of getting the diagnosis/meds right sooner was what I found so exciting about it, too. It would be a lot easier to have a concrete scan like that than it is to find a bipolar-knowledgable psychiatrist, that's for sure. And if it got to that point, maybe the effects of meds could even be monitored and tracked to minimize trial and error.

Dark_in_the_Light wrote:It could even lead to early warnings of coming mood changes.

But if a doctor tells you that you're going to have a serious episode and that causes you to change your behaviour thereby preventing the episode from happening were you ever really going to have a serious episode?

Lexicon_Devil wrote:The fact that they mention triggers says to me that the researchers are well aware that environmental factors are important.

I suppose you're right.

Lexicon_Devil wrote:the idea of having a conclusive test is still exciting, and could potentially be very helpful.

Well, they are really just doing neuroimaging and have found that there are some shared correlates of children and adolsecents who have a parent with Bipolar Disorder. The conclusions that the identification of theze correlates could be used as a metric for Bipolar Disorder or that these correlates could predict Bipolar Disorder is speculative.

Lexicon_Devil wrote:I wonder if they could solve some of the logical grey area by introducing a group of adolescents who had stressful childhoods but didn't develop BP? Who knows. It's interesting to track the research, though.

That's tricky. Usually twin studies are used to assess the degree of heritability of a disorder but even that makes assumptions about the role of the enviroment. I don't actually know how you could do research on the role of stress in developing Bipolar Disorder. I think researchers just look for data where they can find it and make inferences as they go.

I doubt there will ever be a complete theory of Bipolar Disorder but I don't think that should influence the need for early intervention. Children, adolescents and young adults ought to have access to the support and treatment not because they're in a critical developmental period but because they're valuable as human beings and shouldn't have to suffer. The fact that they're in a critical developmental period should just be icing on the cake (chocoalate, of course )