In my last post (https://bipolar1blog.com/2016/07/20/depression-or-lithium-dullness/) I described how dull, blank and lethargic I had been feeling of late, and I hoped it would change. Well today, it seems to have changed, however not in the direction I had hoped it would. Ah yes, isn’t that the way it usually happens… Instead of feeling bright and energetic like I’d wished I would, I actually feel quite anxious and a bit restless and don’t really know what to do with myself. 😦 There is a sort of nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach, and just a feeling of unease. I am still in Buffalo, with my son, who is studying for his Bar exam. So many disquieting things happening these days. And there is nothing I can do about any of them. Whether my son passes the bar or not, nothing I can do about it. I’m here, helping him as much as I can, but that is the extent of what I can do, the rest is up to him…

Whether, and this my nightmare!!! Trump gets elected or not, nothing I can do about it. Move to Canada? Yes that would really be my preference, but seriously, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Whether Turkey, under the dictatorship of that awful Erdogan, becomes more and more Islamist, nothing I can do about it. I am absolutely a Kemalist, a follower of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. And this Erdogan has literally, actively ruined this beautiful, once modern and prosperous country, my adopted country, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Did I mention there are 50 nuclear warheads in the NATO base in Incirlik, Turkey, these are now under the control of this vile Erdogan. And yes, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Just all disquietude and anxiety. Is it my state of mind? Is it due to my illness? Or is it due to what’s happening in the world? All of the above? I don’t know, but yesterday’s blankness would be welcome right about now.

http://ibpf.org/blog/blahs

Feeling much less than inspired these days. Usual summer depression? Or is it that I an so stable on 900 mg of Lithium, that I have no emotions or any ideas for creating blogposts? Don’t know which is the case, just know I feel blah. Generally fine though, just seems like the “little grey cells” aren’t working as well. What to do? Wait it out or start reading voraciously in the hope of being stimulated by something I read? Speaking of reading, I recently discovered Anna Brönte, Charlotte’s sister. I’m reading a book she wrote called “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” It’s a really good book, very well written and so witty and funny in spots that I find myself laughing quite out loud at times. Well that’s it for today. Hope to have something inspirational and riveting soon. Hugs. 

They have found some rare genetic mutations that may be linked to bipolar disorder. They used next generation sequencing and sequenced millions of nucleotides from affected individuals. They looked at eight families with a history of bipolar disorder through several generations. The researchers used next-generation sequencing to examine the DNA of 36 of the family members. They sequenced 50 million nucleotides from each individual, however, before any conclusive results are gotten, they have to do this with several thousand more people. They are confident that new treatments for bipolar disorder will come out of this research. Amen and godspeed!

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/genetic-causes-of-bipolar-disorder

Scientists are comparing DNA from families with histories of bipolar disorder with the hope of better understanding what causes the mental illness.

Researchers may be one step closer to identifying the genetic cause of bipolar disorder.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry has identified 84 potential inherited gene mutations that could contribute to the most severe forms of bipolar disorder.

 “We have known since the 1920s that the illness has a large inherited component to it. But in the last eight years we have uncovered particular genetic variations that play a role in setting bipolar disorder in motion,” Dr. James Potash, chair of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and co-author of the study, told Healthline. “These variations explain some of what is going on, but there is plenty still to discover.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), bipolar disorder affects 60 million people worldwide.

The disorder is characterized by “manic and depressive episodes separated by periods of normal mood.”

Manic episodes involve irritable or elevated moods, inflated self-esteem, overactivity, and a decreased need for sleep.

Data from the National Institute of Mental Health shows 2.6 percent, or approximately 5.7 million adults in the United States, are living with bipolar disorder.

Read more: Get the facts on bipolar disorder »

Searching for a cause

The exact cause of bipolar disorder is unknown.

However, the Mayo Clinic says several factors may be involved. These include physical changes in the brain, an imbalance of naturally occurring brain chemicals, and inherited traits.

“If someone has bipolar disorder type I, the severe form of the illness, the odds that their child will have it are about 5 to 10 percent. That is 5 to 10 times the rate in the general population,” Potash said.

The study Potash was involved in looked at eight families with a history of bipolar disorder through several generations. The researchers used next-generation sequencing to examine the DNA of 36 of the family members.

“Next-generation sequencing is a way of combing through each of the chemical letters in DNA (called nucleotides) that spell out genes,” Potash explained. “In our study we went through about 50 million of these for each person we looked at. The idea is to look for misspellings that are present in people with bipolar disorder.”

Earlier studies examining the genetic cause of bipolar disorder focused on identifying common DNA changes that could only explain a small percentage of the risk for bipolar disorder.

This latest research, led by Dr. Fernando Goes of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, instead focused on identifying more rare genetic mutations that are less common, but may be linked to the more severe forms of bipolar disorder.

However, the researchers caution that the data is not yet strong enough to show a direct link between a specific mutation and bipolar disorder.

“One thing we learned is that it will take genetic data from at least several thousand more people with bipolar disorder to confirm that these rare mutations do in fact directly cause the disease,” Goes said in a press release. “We are working with the Bipolar Sequencing Consortium to gather more data and collaborators so we can definitively figure out causes.”

Read more: How to help someone with bipolar disorder »

New treatments possible

Researchers hope that identifying a genetic cause for bipolar disorder may pave the way for improvements in treatment and diagnosis.

“Many of the pieces of the puzzle of what may cause bipolar disorder are coming together,” Dr. Hilary Blumberg, director of the Mood Disorder Research Program at Yale University, said. “Putting these pieces together will help us to better understand the causes for bipolar disorder, find new ways to detect bipolar disorder earlier, and find new and more targeted treatment strategies.”

Potash is confident that researchers are getting closer to identifying the root cause of bipolar disorder after decades of research.

 This is a very exciting time because we have unprecedented tools that we can use to get to the bottom of what is going wrong in the DNA in bipolar disorder.

Dr. James Potash, University of Iowa

“Given that we as a field have been working on this problem for 100 years, you’d think we’d have gotten further. But if you realize that the human brain is the single most complex thing in the known universe, then you begin to see why progress has been slow,“ he said.

Advances in research methods and the advent of next-generation sequencing technology means scientists are able to examine DNA more quickly and cost effectively than was possible 10 years ago.

“This is a very exciting time because we have unprecedented tools that we can use to get to the bottom of what is going wrong in the DNA in bipolar disorder,” Potash said. “New treatments should emerge from these new insights. These are much needed as those we have now work for about two-thirds of people, but that leaves a lot of people suffering, and many who do not survive the onslaught of bipolar disorder.”

Genes in the striatum have been implicated in bipolar disorder. This is a novel discovery, as research studies done previously had looked at cortical regions of the brain. The impulsivity and risk-taking behavior observed during manic episodes may stem from impaired reward processing and implicate the striatum as a possible region of dysfunction in bipolar disorder. Interesting finding. More research needs to be done which “may shed additional light on the role of specific molecular pathways and neuronal circuits in the etiology of BD, and provide new targets for the development of therapies,” the authors concluded.

http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/news/bd-linked-with-gene-expression-in-striatum/article/509719/New findings by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, reveal striatum-specific genetic associations with bipolar disorder.

An estimated 2.4% of people worldwide are estimated to have bipolar spectrum disorders, which are a significant cause of neuropsychiatric disability. The impulsive and risk-taking behavior observed during manic episodes may stem from impaired reward processing and implicate the striatum as a possible region of dysfunction in bipolar disorder (BD). Neuroimaging data reveal variations between BD subjects and controls in striatal volume, functional activity, and dopamine transporter availability. 

BD heritability estimates are high–between 59–85%, and if the striatum has a role in BD pathophysiology, relevant gene expression changes might be expected in this region. Before the current study, however, transcriptomic research using postmortem brain samples of people with BD has focused primarily on cortical regions.

The study published in Molecular Psychiatry is the first to report the transcriptome sequencing of postmortem striatum samples from individuals diagnosed with BD (n=18) and control individuals (n=17), and they also performed analyses with bioinformatics tools. Changes in expression were observed in 14 genes, and 8 of these were validated by qPCR. These included several immune system genes–LILRA4 and FCGBP, as well as NLRC5 and S100A12, which have been associated with BD and schizophrenia–and various non-protein coding genes.

Functional pathway analysis detected an “enrichment of upregulated genes across many immune/inflammation pathways and an enrichment of downregulated genes among oxidative phosphorylation pathways,” the authors reported. Twenty modules of highly interconnected genes were identified in co-expression network analysis, and 2 of the modules were enriched in BD susceptibility single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Notably, the module found to have the “highest genetic association signal for BD, which contained many genes from signaling pathways, was also enriched in markers characteristic of gene expression in dorsal striatum medium spiny neurons…,” they wrote.

The current results linking the striatum with BD etiology at the gene level are in line with research showing the same association at the anatomical level. In 2 functional imaging studies, for example, decreased activity was found in the dorsal striatum of individuals with BD during reward-related tasks.

The authors speculate that in some BD patients, genetic susceptibility affecting striatal MSN signaling, combined with chronic inflammatory stress, may impair striatal circuits and lead to some of the BD-associated behaviors.

These findings underline the potential importance of striatal signaling pathways in understanding BD pathophysiology. Future human and animal research on the topic “may shed additional light on the role of specific molecular pathways and neuronal circuits in the etiology of BD, and provide new targets for the development of therapies,” the authors concluded.

As you may have heard, the Turkish army staged a coup against the current government. Before anyone condemns their actions, believe me, it was the right thing to do. More’s the pity that it didn’t succeed. Disappointed beyond measure that the Turkish coup failed. The coup would have been the best thing to happen to Turkey since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk! Erdogan is a dictator and megalomaniacal destroyer of Turkey, he’s already undone their constitution. It’s awful what he’s doing to the most modern Muslim state in the world 😦 My relatives in Istanbul are saying that Erdogan staged the whole coup to get even more power and clamp down further on human and civil rights in Turkey. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him! As it is, Turkey, under Erdogan, has one of the worst human rights records in the world. My mother in law, a grande dame of the Ataturk period, calls herself a daughter of Ataturk, is dismayed beyond measure at the deplorable current state of Turkey, which this Erdogan is directly responsible for. It is because of his opening Turkey’s borders in both directions, East and West that IS was able to form, he allowed that. He has imprisoned any journalist who dares say one word against him. He water cannoned, tear gassed and shot peaceful protesters with rubber bullets in Gezi Park. He has shredded the constitution, which the intelligent elite wrote at the time of Ataturk. He has built himself a $615 million mansion, he thinks he is the new Sultan, and all the while he is taking Turkey backwards in time. He is just another third world dictator, out to get whatever he can for himself, dismantling the great state that the amazing genius, Ataturk had fashioned together. It is really disgusting and a pity!

The intellectually elite were the framers of the constitution in 1776, and so have many of the American presidents been, therefore right from the inception of the US, we have been ruled by highly intelligent people. What’s happening in Turkey is what happens when the intellectually elite are not the ruling class of a country, this is what will happen to the US if Trump, anything but intellectually elite, gets elected. A horrifying thought.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samina-raza/56-today_b_10900588.html

A great man, a Pakistani humanitarian and great philanthropist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/abdul-sattar-edhi-january1-1928-july-8-2016_us_57806b47e4b03288ddc67c1f