New method predicts who will respond to lithium therapy

For roughly one-third of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, lithium is a miracle drug, effectively treating both their mania and depression. But once someone is diagnosed, it can take up to a year to learn whether that person will be among the 30 percent who respond to lithium. Salk Professor Rusty Gage, co–first authors Shani Stern and Renata Santos and colleagues report a way to predict, from neuronal firing patterns and with 92 percent accuracy, whether an individual with bipolar disorder will be a lithium responder. The work, which appeared online in Molecular Psychiatry on February 28, 2017, validates the lab’s 2015 discovery of a cellular basis for the disorder and could benefit not only those who will respond to lithium but also the vast majority who will not, sparing them an ineffective treatment.