FEATURED VIDEO: Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia Part One

Although schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are regarded as different psychiatric brain disorders, they have many overlapping features. There are shared clinical symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, depression, anger, and suicidal urges. With formal neurocognitive testing, both disorders demonstrate cognitive deficits in memory and executive functions compared to the general population, but bipolar disorder has superior vocabulary.

Genetically, research shows that both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have multiple risk genes, and some are shared between them. However, copy number variations and mutations are not shared.

In both disorders, brain imaging studies found degenerative changes for both in different brain regions, but they do share abnormalities in the right and left insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus.

High rates of substance use and medical/psychiatric comorbidities are shared between them. Finally, as far as treatment, several atypical antipsychotic medications have efficacy in both disorders.

CURESZ Foundation Editorial Board:

Editor-In-Chief Bethany Yeiser, BS
Henry A. Nasrallah, MD
Karen S. Yeiser, RN
David E. Yeiser, M. Div
Louis B. Cady, MD, FAPA
Mary Beth De Bord, JD
Stephen Rush, MD

Craig Chepke, MD, FAPA
Peirce Johnston, MD
James A. Hunt, JD
Jonathan M. Meyer, MD
Carol North, MD, MPE
Scott Bresler, PhD
Jeffrey Strawn, MD

Please consider making a donation to the CURESZ Foundation online at CURESZ.org Your contribution will help provide education and referrals to persons with schizophrenia, their families, and those who work with the seriously mentally ill. CURESZ informs the general public to better understand this serious brain disorder, and to provide scientific advances showing that there is  hope for recovery, and a return to a fulfilling and normal life. The CURESZ Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions are tax deductible.

“We are committed to helping individuals to cope with and recover from schizophrenia.”

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