After Searching 12 Years for Bipolar Disorder’s Cause, a Team Concludes It Has Many

A long-term study in more than 1,100 people yields a new seven-factor framework that could help patients, clinicians and researchers.

Nearly 6 million Americans have bipolar disorder, and most have probably wondered why. After more than a decade of studying over 1,100 of them in-depth, a University of Michigan team has an answer — or rather, seven answers.

In fact, the team says, no one genetic change, chemical imbalance or life event lies at the heart of every case of the mental health condition once known as manic depression.

Rather, every patient’s experience with bipolar disorder varies from that of others with the condition. But all of their experiences include features that fall into seven classes of phenotypes, or characteristics that can be observed, the team reports in a new paper in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

The team, from U-M’s Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program, collected and analyzed tens of thousands of data points over years about the genetics, emotions, life experiences, medical histories, motivations, diets, temperaments and sleep and thought patterns of research volunteers. More than 730 had bipolar disorder, and 277 didn’t. Three-quarters were active research participants in the Longitudinal Study of Bipolar Disorder.

Using those findings, the team developed a framework that could be useful to researchers studying the condition, clinical teams treating it and patients experiencing it. The team hopes it will give them all a common structure to use during studies, treatment decisions and more.

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