A new University of Guelph study offers new insight into bipolar disorder, providing strong evidence that the origins of the disorder are neurodevelopmental.
The seven-year study was conducted by researchers from Dr. Jasmin Lalonde’s lab and included Drs. Tristen Hewitt and Begüm Alural.
The team used neural progenitor cells or early-stage cells differentiated from stem cells of bipolar patients. They also cultured stem cells from patients with bipolar disorder and individuals who don’t have the disorder and compared them.
The researchers found that hundreds of genes were expressed differently in individuals with bipolar disorder than those without the disorder with many of those genes involved in neurodevelopment.
They also examined neural progenitor cells and discovered that these cells replicate more slowly, move around more, and have longer connections between them compared to cells from people without the disorder.
Read the full article: U of G research sheds new light on origins of bipolar disorder.