Genetic factors regarding bipolar disorder |
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Posted Date: 6/30/2009 |
Blog by: poost |
Viewed: 240
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Category: Mental Health Disorders » Bipolar Disorder |
Bipolar disorder is a mental state in which the patient resonates between alternating depression and mania. It is a severe mental ailment which may vary from slight undetectable mental abnormality to severely crazy individuals. Like those of other mental illnesses the exact and clear cut cause of bipolar disorder is yet to be known however the factors responsible for this disease include both biological and psychological factors. Biological factors do have the important element of genetics at its back.
Regarding genetics the very first and the most obvious question is about the inheritability and familial tendency of the bipolar disorder. Various researches have been carried out on different families, individuals suffering from this disorder and twins to find out the genetic susceptibility, inheritability and familial tendency of this disorder. A study carried out regarding the presence of bipolar disorder and mood variations in first degree relatives of various patients have indicated that first degree relatives of bipolar patients tend to have much more mood swings than that of normal individuals.
Many studies were carried out on twins as well. The overall result of these studies indicates that the presence of this disorder in genetically identical twins has been found to be three times greater than that of fraternal twins. It means that if one of the twins has a mood disorder then the chances of the presence of mood disorder in the identical twin is three times greater than in fraternal twin.
Moreover different studies of twins also suggest that if one of them suffers from a bipolar disorder then the chances of the other twin if he or she in fraternal is 16%. However if the two twins are genetically identical then the chances increase up to 80%. This shows the importance of genetics regarding bipolar disorder. This familial tendency , heritability and genetic susceptibility in case of first degree relatives which further increases in twins and is even more in identical ones indicate that this disorder has a genetic background.
In patient health international 2006 it has been shown that 2/3 of the cases suffering from bipolar disorder have mood swings or depression in their first degree relatives. This indicates that this disorder shares a common genetic basis if not completely then at least to some extent with other neurological disorders like depression.
A recent study has been carried out on the genetic correlation between bipolar disorder and other neurological illnesses like schizophrenia in University of Bonn, Germany in their department of genetics. This was on the subject that the recently established gene which is the brain expressed gene for G-72 has known to have an effect on the susceptibility of schizophrenia. This gene is thought to be partially responsible in the development of this disorder. The brain expressed G-72 gene is also thought to be associated with bipolar disorder as well.
Another gene regarding the genetic relationship between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is the brain expressed D-Amino acid-Oxidize gene, however significant evidence regarding the involvement of this gene in patients of bipolar disease has not been found yet but still it is a suspected gene.
Another research has shown that impaired XBP-1 has some association with bipolar disorder. This impaired feedback is thought to be associated with much more chances of bipolar disorder. Thereby we can say that according to a research published in nature genetics the impaired feedback of XBP-1 is associated with an increase in the risk and susceptibility of bipolar disorder.
All of the above studies show a strong correlation between the genetics of bipolar disorder and other neurological illnesses.
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