%0 Journal Article
%T Lithium: a key to the genetics of bipolar disorder
%A Cristiana Cruceanu
%A Martin Alda
%A Gustavo Turecki
%J Genome Medicine
%D 2009
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/gm79
%X Lithium has been the treatment of choice for bipolar disorder (BD) for many years. It works particularly well with BD because it is efficient both as a prophylactic and as an acute treatment; in addition, it has been successfully used as an augmenting agent in the management of unipolar depression. Given the debilitating nature of BD, its lifetime prevalence and significant occurrence in the general population (1 to 2%), understanding the mode of action of one of its most efficient lines of treatments is critical [1,2].Lithium can be highly effective, but unfortunately only a subset of patients responds well to this treatment. These patients are distinguishable from non-responders through a number of clinical characteristics that appear to be accounted for, to a certain extent, by the individual's genetic makeup. For instance, BD patients with positive response to lithium typically suffer from a non-rapid cycling course of illness with full remission between episodes [3]. Patients with a family history of lithium-responsive BD among first-degree relatives have a better chance of responding well to lithium [4]. This adds evidence for the heritability of the response to prophylactic treatment with lithium, a fact that can be used in the design of experiments aimed at deciphering the complex etiology of BD as well as the mode of action of lithium treatment.In this paper, we will review clinical and molecular studies that characterize lithium response in BD families, investigate the molecular underpinnings of BD by focusing on lithium responders, and identify genes involved in lithium response. Additionally, we will look at the cellular targets of lithium and the genetics behind the side-effects that arise from treatment.Lithium is a metallic salt most commonly known for its role in treating BD. Though it was first shown to have medical applications in the 1840s, for the treatment of bladder stones and gout, it was not until the late 19th century that the therapeutic ef
%U http://genomemedicine.com/content/1/8/79