Personalizing bipolar disorder treatment
Tel Aviv University researchers find insulin-like hormone increases lithium sensitivity in patients
2015-04-22
(Press-News.org) Rapidly swinging from extremes of joy and energy to sadness, fatigue, and confusion, bipolar disorder (BD) patients feel desperate and largely alone in the world. And according to the National Institutes of Health, between 25-50 percent of the roughly 3% of Americans living with BD attempt suicide at least once. Lithium is among the most effective therapies for BD, and remains the first-line treatment even as other mood stabilizing drugs have become available. But about half of the patients prescribed lithium do not respond to the treatment.
A new Tel Aviv University study, published in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, may pave the way for improving the efficacy of lithium in these patients. The study found that the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) hormone, known for its pivotal role in tissue growth, is also capable of increasing the lithium sensitivity of blood cells in bipolar disorder patients in whom lithium was originally ineffective.
The research was led by TAU postgraduate student Dr. Elena Milanesi under the guidance of Dr. David Gurwitz of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience and Dr. Noam Shomron of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, in collaboration with Sackler graduate student Adva Hadar and Prof. Haim Werner of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, along with researchers in Italy and Germany.
A new hope
"Lithium has been considered the cornerstone in the management of bipolar disorder for over 50 years, even though half of patients do not sufficiently respond to chronic lithium treatment," said Dr. Gurwitz. "It is often prescribed as the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder. If it works, patients take it for years. If not, they have to explore alternatives which haven't proven as effective in long-term clinical studies."
The researchers examined the in vitro effects of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) on lithium sensitivity in blood cell lines of both lithium-responsive and non-responsive bipolar patients. They found that when IGF-1 was added to the cultured blood cells there was increased lithium sensitivity only in the blood cells of those bipolar disorder patients who did not respond to lithium therapy.
"Our study suggests that the lack of sufficient IGF-1 activity may underlie lithium resistance in the treatment of bipolar disorder, and this hormone, or drugs mimicking or promoting its action, should be considered for improved treatment of this disorder", says Dr. Milanesi.
"There are no established animal models for bipolar disorder, so it will be hard to test this idea in animals," Dr. Gurwitz added. "However, given that IGF-1 is approved for human use in people who are deficient in this hormone, a clinical trial of IGF-1 in lithium-resistant bipolar disorder patients is warranted."
The research on lithium resistance biomarkers was supported by the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF).
INFORMATION:
American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). US News & World Report's Best Global Universities Rankings rate TAU as #148 in the world, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings rank TAU Israel's top university. It is one of a handful of elite international universities rated as the best producers of successful startups, and TAU alumni rank #9 in the world for the amount of American venture capital they attract.
A leader in the pan-disciplinary approach to education, TAU is internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship -- attracting world-class faculty and consistently producing cutting-edge work with profound implications for the future.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-04-22
TORONTO, April 22, 2015 -- A genetic test that can prevent 'killer' bees from spreading around the world has been created in a research effort led by University of Sydney scholars jointly with York University scientists.
"Our genetic test is highly accurate and considerably more sophisticated than the old tests that have a high tendency to misclassify hybrid bees," says Professor Amro Zayed in the department of Biology, Faculty of Science.
Africanized honeybees are highly aggressive and very difficult to manage relative to European honeybees used by Canadian and Australian ...
2015-04-22
In the most comprehensive study ever on the impact of smoking on cardiovascular disease in older people, epidemiologist Dr. Ute Mons from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) analyzed 25 individual studies, compiling data from over half a million individuals age 60 and older.
Twice as many smokers die from cardiovascular disease than life-long non-smokers do. The increase in risk depends on the number of cigarettes that a person has smoked in his or her lifetime. After one quits smoking, this risk continues to decrease. On average, ...
2015-04-22
In the quantum world of light, being distinguishable means staying lonely. Only those photons that are indistinguishable can wind up in a pair, through what is called Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. This subtle quantum effect has been successfully imaged for the first time by two doctoral students from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw.
Physicists have long known that photons can become bunched together. However, technological limitations have prevented the phenomenon from actually being observed directly. Only recently has this feat been achieved by two ...
2015-04-22
Bethesda, MD, April 20, 2015: The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), the premier global, non-profit organization serving molecular diagnostic professionals, today published a special article in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics titled, "Do Circulating Tumor Cells, Exosomes, and Circulating Tumor Nucleic Acids Have Clinical Utility?" The report provides a thorough overview of research to-date on the minimally invasive "liquid biopsy" approaches to cancer diagnostics.
"As a group of molecular diagnostic experts, we were intrigued and excited by the emerging ...
2015-04-22
Hasbro Children's Hospital study finds link between adverse childhood experiences and pediatric asthma
Children who experience violence, substance abuse at home
report significantly higher rates of asthma
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Robyn Wing, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital, recently led a study that found children who were exposed to an adverse childhood experience (ACE) were 28 percent more likely to develop asthma. The rate of asthma occurrence further increased in children with each additional ACE exposure. The study, recently published ...
2015-04-22
Scientists have for the first time captured live images of the process of taste sensation on the tongue.
The international team imaged single cells on the tongue of a mouse with a specially designed microscope system.
"We've watched live taste cells capture and process molecules with different tastes," said biomedical engineer Dr Steve Lee, from The Australian National University (ANU).
There are more than 2,000 taste buds on the human tongue, which can distinguish at least five tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.
However the relationship between the ...
2015-04-22
Rather than slowing down, ants speed up in response to a higher density of traffic on their trails, according to new research published in Springer's journal The Science of Nature - Naturwissenschaften. When the researchers increased the supply of food by leaving food next to the trail, ants accelerated their speed by 50 percent. This was despite more than double the density of traffic.
When food increases in supply, more forager ants are sent out to carry it back to the nest. With this increase in ant density, the number of encounters between outbound and incoming individuals ...
2015-04-22
The ability of materials to conduct heat is a concept that we are all familiar with from everyday life. The modern story of thermal transport dates back to 1822 when the brilliant French physicist Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier published his book "Théorie analytique de la chaleur" (The Analytic Theory of Heat), which became a corner stone of heat transport. He pointed out that the thermal conductivity, i.e., ratio of the heat flux to the temperature gradient is an intrinsic property of the material itself.
The advent of nanotechnology, where the rules of classical ...
2015-04-22
Scientists at The University of Manchester have made an important finding that could help develop an early test for kidney disease.
Dr Rachel Lennon from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research has been studying why some people are more susceptible to kidney disease because of their race and gender.
She explains: "It's well known that impaired kidney function is more common in Afro-Caribbean individuals compared to those from a Caucasian background, and in men compared to women. However, the reasons for the difference in susceptibility are only just being ...
2015-04-22
This news release is available in German.
The size of the neonatal skull is large relative to the dimensions of the birth canal in the female pelvis. This is the reason why childbirth is slower and more difficult in humans than in most other primates. Scientists from the Universities of Oslo and Vienna, identified adaptations in the morphology of the human body, which were unknown so far. The results of this new study appeared in the current edition of PNAS.
Upright walking and difficult birth
In hominids, upright walking evolved 4-5 million years ago. The ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Personalizing bipolar disorder treatment
Tel Aviv University researchers find insulin-like hormone increases lithium sensitivity in patients
