Raising new hope for early intervention, a brain imaging study of young people at high risk of developing bipolar disorder has for the first time found evidence of weakening connections between key areas of the brain in late adolescence. 

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression)

 The study spanning two years holds importance in the context of India where the current prevalence of bipolar disorder is 6.9 percent as compared to other psychiatric illnesses.

"If we can get in early, whether that's training in psychological resilience, or maybe medications, then we may be able to prevent this progression towards major changes in the brain," researchers feel.

Up until now, medical researchers knew that bipolar disorder was associated with reduced communication between brain networks that are involved with emotional processing and thinking, but how these networks developed prior to the condition was a mystery.

The study is published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Researchers from UNSW Sydney, the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), the University of Newcastle and international institutions showed evidence of these networks diminishing over time in young adults at high genetic risk of developing bipolar disorder -- which has important implications for future intervention strategies.

The researchers used diffusion-weighted magnetic imaging (dMRI) technology to scan the brains of 183 individuals over a two-year period. They examined the progressive changes in the brain scans of people with high genetic risk of developing the condition over a two year period, before comparing them with a control group of people with no risk.

People with a parent or sibling who has bipolar disorder are considered high genetic risk, and are 10 times more likely to develop the condition than people without the close family link. In the brain image scans of 97 people with high genetic risk of bipolar disorder, the researchers noted a decrease in connectivity between regions of the brain devoted to emotion processing and cognition during the two years between scans.

But in the control group of 86 people with no family history of mental illness, they observed the opposite: strengthening in the neural connections between these same regions, when the adolescent brain matures to become more adept at the cognitive and emotional reasoning required in adulthood.

Scientia Professor Philip Mitchell AM, a practising academic psychiatrist with UNSW Medicine & Health, says the findings raise new ideas about treatment and intervention in bipolar disorder developing in young people with a higher risk.

"Our study really helps us understand the pathway for people at risk of bipolar. We now have a much clearer idea of what's happening in the brains of young people as they grow up."

Professor Michael Breakspear, who led the team at HMRI and the University of Newcastle that carried out the analysis of the dMRI scans, says the study illustrates how advances in technology can potentially bring about life-changing improvements to the way that mental illnesses can be treated.

"The relatives of people with bipolar disorder -- especially the siblings and children -- often ask about their own future risk, and this is a question of high personal concern," he says.

"It's also an issue for their doctors, as the presence of bipolar disorder has important medication implications.”

"If we can get in early, whether that's training in psychological resilience, or maybe medications, then we may be able to prevent this progression towards major changes in the brain."

As a result of the new findings, the researchers are planning to do a third follow-up scan of participants in the study. They are also in the early stages of developing online programs that assist in the development of resilience while providing young people with skills in managing anxiety and depression, which they hope will reduce their chances of developing bipolar disorder.

To raisr awareness about the condition which is highly stigmatized, March 30 is observed as World Bipolar Day.

On the day, Dr Jhunu Mukherjee, psychiatrist from Dr B R Singh Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, took to the Twitter to say that Bipolar Disorders are mood disorders characterized by episodes of lows ( depression) an highs ( mania/ hypomania). At least46 million people are suffering from this mental disorder and  it's one of the important cause of Suicide.

Similarly,  Dr. Maneesh Gupta, MD (Psychiatry) stressed on raising  awareness of and to understand what bipolardisorder does to an individual, the family members, care givers, friends and acquaintances.
One should seek treatment from a psychiatrist and encourage adherence to mood stabilisers, he added.