Adults with bipolar I disorder who switched to an aripiprazole injection given every 2 months had more days covered by medication over the next 6 months than in the 6 months before, according to a US insurance-claims study of 1,467 people.1 Hospital stays and medical costs fell too, but the study had no comparison group …
A 124-person study of euthymic bipolar disorder found that patients with early systematic antidepressant treatment history had higher negative affect, attentional impulsivity, non-planning impulsivity, and total BIS-11A impulsivity scores than matched patients without that history.1 The association is clinically cautionary, but the cross-sectional design cannot separate antidepressant effects from delayed bipolar diagnosis or more severe …
A 2026 systematic review found that microglia-related immune signals do not line up cleanly with psychiatric diagnosis labels: major depression showed frontolimbic TSPO-PET increases, while schizophrenia showed elevated kynurenic acid in cerebrospinal fluid.1 The strongest interpretation is that immune-brain markers may sort subgroups better than DSM categories do. Research Highlights Depression had the clearest TSPO-PET …
A 2026 structural MRI study found that cerebellar gray-matter patterns helped distinguish first-episode bipolar depression from unipolar depression: a model using significant cerebellar lobules reached 76.3% accuracy and AUC 0.779.1 The result is best read as proof-of-concept neuroimaging evidence, not as a scan-based bipolar diagnostic test. Research Highlights Classifier performance was moderate: cerebellar lobules with …
A 244-person functional MRI study found no significant evidence that ventral striatum activation during reward anticipation works as an endophenotype — a measurable trait used to connect inherited risk with diagnosed illness — for bipolar and psychotic disorders. Research Highlights The registered hypothesis failed: Barendse et al. found no significant ventral striatum reward-anticipation difference among …
An 11-person case series tested delayed-release apple cider vinegar capsules in young adults who had gained weight while taking psychotropic medications, and metabolic markers carried more signal than weight loss. Research Highlights Feasibility was the strongest result: 11 of 12 enrolled participants completed the study, 10 of 11 completers missed 5 or fewer doses, and …
A 2026 resting-state fMRI study of 800 adults found intra-thalamic hypoconnectivity across schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, but schizophrenia showed far broader subcortical dysconnectivity than bipolar disorder or depression.1 The calibrated read is that these diagnoses may share a thalamic vulnerability while diverging in striatal and limbic circuitry. Research Highlights Shared thalamic deficit: In …