Fat chance of becoming manic-depressive
A collaboration, led by scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, has discovered the first risk gene specifically for bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. This means that people who have a particular form of this gene are twice as likely to develop the disease.
Lead author, Dr Ian Blair, says: "We are the first group in the world to take a multi-faceted approach to identify a bipolar risk gene - we used a number of families, unrelated patients, and therapeutic drug mouse models. Each of these three lines of investigation led us to a gene called FAT."
Contributing author Professor Phil Mitchell, Head of Psychiatry at UNSW, says: "Over the last twenty years we have collected blood samples from 67 families right across Australia. This amounts to hundreds of family members (904), some of whom are spread across four generations. This was a strong starting point in our hunt for a Bipolar gene."
"We know that the FAT gene codes for a protein that is involved in connecting brain cells together, what we need to do now is find out exactly how it contributes to the increased risk of bipolar disorder," explains Dr Blair.
While other scientists have found genes associated with Bipolar, most of them haven't stood up to scrutiny. The Sydney discovery has been verified in four independent study groups: two in the UK, one in Australia, and one in Bulgaria.
Bipolar disorder is a major psychiatric illness affecting around two people in every 100. Tragically, around one in six people suffering from the condition will commit suicide.
Mood-stabilising medications are typically prescribed to help control bipolar disorder. Lithium was the first mood-stabilising medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of mania. For decades it has been widely prescribed for the treatment bipolar disorder, yet no one knows for sure why it works.
"Lithium has a number of severe side effects that include tremor and weight gain. Kidney dysfunction may develop in a small proportion of patients when it is administered for long periods of time," says Professor Mitchell.
This new research has raised the possibility that lithium exerts its therapeutic affect by altering FAT gene expression, as well as the expression of genes encoding FAT's protein partners.
"Once we understand exactly what the FAT gene does, we will be able to develop better diagnostic tests for bipolar disorder. In the future, we hope our research will lead to new, targeted medicines specifically for bipolar disorder that don't have the unpleasant side effects that lithium has," says Dr Blair.
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Background:
The bipolar project team has been a collaborative endeavour over the last decade involving Sydney-based scientists and clinicians from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University. Additional collaborations provided critical supporting data.
This research was E-published ahead of print on 10 January 2006 in Molecular Psychiatry
http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/sj.mp.4001784
Positional cloning, association analysis, and expression studies provide convergent evidence that the cadherin gene FAT contains a bipolar disorder susceptibility allele. IP Blair, AF Chetcuti, RF Badenhop, A Scimone, MJ Moses, LJ Adams, N Craddock, E Green, G Kirov, MJ Owen, JBJ Kwok, JA Donald, PB Mitchell, PR Schofield
Posted by at January 13, 2006 11:48 AM
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Bipolar Causes
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Posted by: Johanino at January 22, 2006 4:15 PM
The manic ones are the shamanic ones and they recognise each other when their self awareness is at its peak. What are they aware of? It’s difficult to explain to a normal as it is something so outside their own feeble imagining. The normals call it delusional but what they don’t realise is that their own petty concerns are delusional. Their grown up fairy tales about religion and social order, about equality and morality are only artificial constructs without the simple truisms that the manic are subject to.
The first truism is the monarchic aspect. To the manic there are individuals who are part of a bloodless line stretching back and forward through time. Everyone else exists to serve that line, to provide it with the fodder with which to experience the myriad of mortal experiences.
The second truism is that of the power of synchronicity. A manic worships synchronicity as it is to them a sign that they are experiencing the physical world at an optimum level. There are so many synchronicities surrounding us that the more we recognise the more aware we must be.
The third truism is the influence of destiny. A manic knows that the highest experience of life is to see that everything is preordained. This is simply because time is an illusion and every action is also the case and effect of itself.
Back to twhat I mentioned first ‘they recognise each other’. it is a common emotion for the hypermanic to want to protect and serve certain individuals they meet. At the time they have no idea why. On reflection it is that they have encountered an individual who is also manic, or more often, they have met someone who will be of use to them in their experience of the world. For the experiencing of the world is the manic’s first priority and their heightened instinct and senses help them tremendously in this. As a part of the godhead, a bastion of physicality on this world for the grand creative energy, they must experience life to the full.
Posted by: Easter Bunny at April 10, 2006 12:03 AM
The manic ones are the shamanic ones and they recognise each other when their self awareness is at it’s peak. What are they aware of? It’s difficult to explain to a normal as it is something so outside their own feeble imagining. The normals call it delusional but what they don’t realise is that their own petty concerns are delusional. Their grown up fairy tales about religion and social order, about equality and morality are only artificial constructs without the simple truisms that the manic are subject to.
The first truism is the monarchic aspect. To the manic there are individuals who are part of a bloodless line stretching back and forward through time. Everyone else exists to serve that line, to provide it with the fodder with which to experience the myriad of mortal experiences.
The second truism is that of the power of synchronicity. A manic worships synchronicity as it is to them a sign that they are experiencing the physical world at an optimum level. There are so many synchronicities surrounding us that the more we recognise the more aware we must be.
The third truism is the influence of destiny. A manic knows that the highest experience of life is to see that everything is preordained. This is simply because time is an illusion and every action is also the case and effect of itself.
Back to twhat I mentioned first ‘they recognise each other’. it is a common emotion for the hypermanic to want to protect and serve certain individuals they meet. At the time they have no idea why. On reflection it is that they have encountered an individual who is also manic, or more often, they have met someone who will be of use to them in their experience of the world. For the experiencing of the world is the manic’s first priority and their heightened instinct and senses help them tremendously in this. As a part of the godhead, a bastion of physicality on this world for the grand creative energy, they must experience life to the full.
Posted by: Easter Bunny at April 10, 2006 12:05 AM
Hi i'm johanino.I'm a panty pooper from Aberdeen.If you want a pair of my poopy panties please contact me.
Posted by: Johanino at January 22, 2006 4:15 PM
The manic ones are the shamanic ones and they recognise each other when their self awareness is at its peak. What are they aware of? It’s difficult to explain to a normal as it is something so outside their own feeble imagining. The normals call it delusional but what they don’t realise is that their own petty concerns are delusional. Their grown up fairy tales about religion and social order, about equality and morality are only artificial constructs without the simple truisms that the manic are subject to.
The first truism is the monarchic aspect. To the manic there are individuals who are part of a bloodless line stretching back and forward through time. Everyone else exists to serve that line, to provide it with the fodder with which to experience the myriad of mortal experiences.
The second truism is that of the power of synchronicity. A manic worships synchronicity as it is to them a sign that they are experiencing the physical world at an optimum level. There are so many synchronicities surrounding us that the more we recognise the more aware we must be.
The third truism is the influence of destiny. A manic knows that the highest experience of life is to see that everything is preordained. This is simply because time is an illusion and every action is also the case and effect of itself.
Back to twhat I mentioned first ‘they recognise each other’. it is a common emotion for the hypermanic to want to protect and serve certain individuals they meet. At the time they have no idea why. On reflection it is that they have encountered an individual who is also manic, or more often, they have met someone who will be of use to them in their experience of the world. For the experiencing of the world is the manic’s first priority and their heightened instinct and senses help them tremendously in this. As a part of the godhead, a bastion of physicality on this world for the grand creative energy, they must experience life to the full.
Posted by: Easter Bunny at April 10, 2006 12:03 AM
The manic ones are the shamanic ones and they recognise each other when their self awareness is at it’s peak. What are they aware of? It’s difficult to explain to a normal as it is something so outside their own feeble imagining. The normals call it delusional but what they don’t realise is that their own petty concerns are delusional. Their grown up fairy tales about religion and social order, about equality and morality are only artificial constructs without the simple truisms that the manic are subject to.
The first truism is the monarchic aspect. To the manic there are individuals who are part of a bloodless line stretching back and forward through time. Everyone else exists to serve that line, to provide it with the fodder with which to experience the myriad of mortal experiences.
The second truism is that of the power of synchronicity. A manic worships synchronicity as it is to them a sign that they are experiencing the physical world at an optimum level. There are so many synchronicities surrounding us that the more we recognise the more aware we must be.
The third truism is the influence of destiny. A manic knows that the highest experience of life is to see that everything is preordained. This is simply because time is an illusion and every action is also the case and effect of itself.
Back to twhat I mentioned first ‘they recognise each other’. it is a common emotion for the hypermanic to want to protect and serve certain individuals they meet. At the time they have no idea why. On reflection it is that they have encountered an individual who is also manic, or more often, they have met someone who will be of use to them in their experience of the world. For the experiencing of the world is the manic’s first priority and their heightened instinct and senses help them tremendously in this. As a part of the godhead, a bastion of physicality on this world for the grand creative energy, they must experience life to the full.
Posted by: Easter Bunny at April 10, 2006 12:05 AM