What Causes Bipolar Disorder?

Today the exact cause of bipolar disorder is not known. Although there are certain theories about the possible causes of bipolar disorder, researchers, clinicians, scientist and opinion leaders in this field agree that there is no single cause of bipolar disorder. They believe that the disease şs likely caused by multiple factors that interact with each other to produce a chemical imbalance affecting certain parts of the brain. The researchers in this field study on the certain genes that is the microscopic building blocks of DNA inside all cells that have an impact on the mind and body’s functioning and growing. Scientists are trying to find out the DNA impact on generations for developing the illness. Currently the specific genetic link has not been found. However almost 80 percent of the patients’ relatives suffer from certain form of depression. Thus many of the researchers believe that bipolar disorder often runs in families and clinical studies suggest a genetic component to the illness. According to some theories environmental factors like distressing life events may trigger the development of the illness. Scientists believe that biochemical imbalance of bipolar disorder is caused by irregular hormone production or to a problem with certain chemicals in the brain, called neurotransmitters, that act as messengers to our nerve cells. On the other hand there is evidence from imaging clinical studies that the brains of patients with bipolar disorder may differ from the brains of healthy people. The available imaging methods are MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), PET (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).

Although the exact cause of bipolar disorder is not known, many researchers believe that the rapidly growing body of evidence from genetic and biological studies will soon answer questions such as: What goes wrong in the brain when bipolar disorder occurs? Are episodes of depression or mania caused by chemical changes in the body? How do medications improve the symptoms of bipolar disorder?

Some evidence suggests that bipolar disorder may involve a genetically transmitted vulnerability. While it also appears that several neurotransmitter systems are involved, their exact role is not yet known. Most investigators believe that bipolar disorder involves a complex interrelationship among many genetic and biological factors.