2016 Participants
James Lister
Bipolar disorder affects mood states, and is debilitating for those who suffer from it. Lithium can help to manage it, but is not effective for everyone. Currently there is no easy way to know if someone will respond to lithium or not, short of treating them with a long course of the drug. When it does work, it is thought to do so by affecting brain levels of NAA (N-acetylaspartate, a supposed marker of neuronal integrity) and myo-inositol (thought to be involved in mania). To determine if changes in these chemicals act as markers of Lithium response, we must be able to measure them in the brain. Thus, a standardised procedure was designed to allow consistent determination of the levels of these compounds from the output of a magnetic resonance spectroscopy scan. This fed into a larger project to improve understanding of the brain’s response to treatment with lithium.
Funding source: Newcastle University
Supervisor: Dr David Cousins