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About
Bipolar
(View Additional Pages Below) |
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When you have a heart attack,
people can locate where the plaque has blocked your
artery, but when you have a mood disorder people attributed
it to "chemical imbalances" - pretty vague. New studies
are emerging that are helping scientists locate the
specific parts of the brain that are affected by bipolar
disorder. The good news is the more we know about these
cause and effect chains, the more effective the medications
become.
While researchers cannot point to one area of the brain
that causes someone to exhibit bipolar symptoms, there
are a number of regions being studied that art starting
to give some clues. The inner most structures of the
brain are responsible for processing reward, pleasure,
emotion, and memory. Studies show that there is over
activity in our reward center that causes people to
lose judgment on how certain behaviors (e.g., overspending,
sexual activity) may affect them. One of the brain's
emotional regulators, the amygdala, seems to be slow
to habituate to a response. That is, bipolar people
may remain emotionally reactive beyond the usual response
time. The memory centers seem to be faulty in the area
of helping people recognize danger and safety, resulting
in a constant state of anxiety. Higher brain functioning
is also problematic in people with bipolar disorders.
Brain images of parts of the prefrontal cortex (the
part of the brain behind the forehead) show a 20%-40%
reduction in gray matter in bipolar people. This part
of the brain controls our "executive functioning" -
our ability to plan complex behaviors, moderate social
control, and differentiate right from wrong. Finally,
bipolar patients seem to have a 40% loss of a certain
serotonin receptor in the brain stem that may account
for depression. |
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