Bipolar Disorder: A Genetic Analysis

Bipolar disorder sometimes referred to as manic depressive disorder is a type of affective disorder, characterized by cyclical episodes of mania and depression. Depression is categorized as a loss of energy, disrupted sleep, feeling down or empty, impaired thinking, and lack of interest and pleasure. Mania is categorized by increased energy, decreased need for sleep speeding thoughts, disorganized thinking, and speech is pressured, and heightened senses that can lead to agitation. Bipolar disorder has multiple factors, but genetic and biological elements are the easiest to test and gain an empirical understanding of the disorder. Genetics has been a common element seen in high risk low risk person with bipolar disorder through studies of heritability.

Post, Leverich, Keck, McElroy, Altshuler, Frye, Luckenbaugh, Rowe, Grunze, Suppes, and Nolen (2013) findings found significance in that the unilineal and bilineal positive history of mood disorder parental loading of increases with early onset of bipolar disorder. Through genome-wide association analysis identify the susceptibility of the specific genes for bipolar disorder. A way to test the familial risk for bipolar disorder performed slower with a variation response time when higher levels of conflict. In Patino, Adler, Mills, Strakowski, Fleck, Welge, Delbello (2013) screening of adolescents dealing with cognitive flexibility task defines as a marker that can relate to the development of bipolar

(2013) and Patino et al. (2013), however once someone is diagnosed other intervals have to be used to make measurements on the disorder. Neurodegeneration is an apparent side effect of the illness that ought to posses anatomical evidence of the progression of bipolar disorder. It was in Rolstad, Jakobsson, Sellgren, Ekman, Blennow, Zetterberg, Palsson, and Landén (2015) study that used Cerebrospinal Fluid as a biomarker during the cognitive performance tasks. The only time they could find significance in these associations of CSF biomarkers and neural degeneration during these assessments of cognitive performance was during a euthymic episode of persons whom are bipolar (the time between either manic or depressive episodes that are relatively normal moods). In studying the importance of CSF biomarkers Jakobsson, Zetterberg, Blennow, Ekman, Johansson, and Landen (2012) found that it was a concentration of Amyloid precursor protein decrease that was the association for the severity in bipolar disorder. This suggest a probable role in neural inflammation defining more in the pathogenesis of bipolar