Over the past two decades, driven by the enormous public health importance of bipolar disorder, research initiatives have begun to elucidate the pathophysiology of this prevalent and debilitating condition. These research initiatives have led to breakthroughs in our understanding of causation, and now promise to foster the development of novel treatments. This new edition presents contributions from the leaders at the forefront of these areas of research, and includes chapters on the groundbreaking advances in the fields of genetics, neuroimaging, neuropsychopharmacology, oxidative stress and neuronal resilience, inflammatory mechanisms, psychosocial factors, childhood onset and late-life bipolar disorder, and many other important areas. Throughout, the therapeutic implications and potential of this new understanding are emphasized. This will be essential reading for those interested in the neurobiology of mental illness, and will be of interest to mental health practitioners more generally.

List of contributors; Preface; 1. The classification of bipolar disorders: implications for clinical research Michael J. Ostacher, Mark A. Frye and Trisha Suppes; 2. Prospects for the development of animal models for the study of bipolar disorder Trevor R. Norman; 3. Abnormalities in catecholamines and the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder Alexander W. Charney, Sehrish Sayed and Dennis S. Charney; 4. Serotonergic dysfunction in bipolar disorder Martin J. Lan and J. John Mann; 5. Involvement of GABAergic/glutamatergic pathways in mood disorders Paul Stokes and James Stone; 6. Oxidative stress and neuronal resilience: implications for the pathophysiology of bipolar disorders Gabriela Delevati Colpo, Gabriel Rodrigo Fries, Laura Stertz and Flávio Kapczinski; 7. Post-mortem studies in bipolar disorder Francine M. Benes and Sivan Subburaju; 8. The neuroendocrinology of stress in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorders Allan H. Young and Alessandro Colasanti; 9. Brain imaging abnormalities in bipolar disorder Marsal Sanches and Jair C. Soares; 10. Sleep and circadian rhythms in bipolar disorders Sara Dallaspezia and Francesco Benedetti; 11. Infectious agents: role in causation of bipolar disorders? Olaoluwa O. Okusaga; 12. EEGs and ERPs in bipolar disorders R. Hamish McAllister-Williams; 13. Genetic factors in the etiology of bipolar disorder Consuelo Walss-Bass; 14. Neurocognitive findings in bipolar disorder David C. Glahn, Carrie E. Bearden and Sophia Frangou; 15. Psychotherapeutic interventions in bipolar disorder Thomas Daniel Meyer; 16. The kindling/sensitization model and the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder Robert M. Post; 17. Biological factors in bipolar disorder in childhood and adolescence Melissa A. Brotman, Banafsheh Sharif-Askary, Daniel P. Dickstein and Ellen Leibenluft; 18. Biological factors in bipolar disorder in late life Brent Forester, Ariel G. Gildengers and Robert C. Young; 19. Perspectives for new pharmacological interventions Charles L. Bowden; 20. Physical health and metabolic dysfunction in bipolar disorder Joshua D. Rosenblat, Danielle S. Cha, Rodrigo B. Mansur and Roger S. McIntyre; 21. Immune dysregulation in bipolar disorder Antonio Lucio Teixeira, Izabela Guimarães Barbosa and Moisés Evandro Bauer; Index.