🔗 Read more: www.bipolaruk.org/get-involved...

#BipolarDisorder #MentalHealth #MentalHealthPolicy

5/5 The Commission's 'Bipolar Minds Matter' report calls for an immediate restructure of the healthcare system and a dedicated bipolar care pathway — ensuring specialist treatment and continuity of support over a lifetime.

4/5 Bipolar costs the UK economy £20 billion a year — 17% of the entire disease burden of mental illness, yet receives only 1.5% of research funding. 44% of people with bipolar have experienced stigma in the workplace, and 57% report a lack of understanding as a barrier to thriving at work.

3/5 Someone with bipolar takes their own life every day in the UK. Relapse rates are high - 98% of survey respondents told us they had relapsed at least once and 52% had been hospitalised. This is a public health emergency hiding in plain sight.

2/5 After first telling a healthcare professional about their symptoms, it takes an average of 9.5 years to receive a bipolar diagnosis. In Wales, that figure rises to 11.9 years. This delay has devastating consequences.

1/5 Over a million people in the UK live with bipolar, and more than five million friends and family members are significantly affected. Yet over half of people with bipolar — 56% — don't have a diagnosis.

On the last day of the PGC #Bipolar work group take over, we want to focus on the people living with bipolar disorder every day. The Bipolar Commission and charity Bipolar UK, has spent five years gathering evidence on the state of bipolar care in the UK. Here's what they found:

📄Paper: Grotzinger et al. Nature (2025)
🔗www-nature-com.bris.idm.oclc.org/articles/s41586-025-0982...

4/4 This work finds high overlap and evidence for shared biological pathways across conditions like SCZ & BD. Treatments targeting shared pathways could be used to treat multiple conditions. They also find that variants associated with SCZ/BD may have multiple biological roles.

3/4 Related loci were associated with excitatory neuron functions in areas such as the hippocampus. Gene expression occurred throughout the lifespan but was highest in fetal development and early life demonstrating the benefits of assessing time-sensitive genetic effects.

2/4 The SCZ-BD factor was positively genetically correlated with risk tolerance, sleep duration and non-cognitive educational attainment amongst others and negatively correlated with memory. These genetic correlations were unique from other factors.

1/4 They identified 5 distinct genetic factors across the 14 psychiatric traits, but we will focus on the schizophrenia-bipolar (SCZ-BD) factor. This factor showed high polygenic overlap, with few disorder-specific loci.

There is high symptom and genetic overlap across psychiatric conditions. @andrewgrotzinger.bsky.social et al. (2025) explored this using our #GWAS data of over 1 mil cases across 14 conditions. They assessed the genetic architecture and the functional roles of genes across these conditions.

📄Paper: Richards et al. JAMA Psychiatry (2022)
🔗jamanetwork-com.bris.idm.oclc.org/journals/jamapsychiatry/...

5/5 This work shows differences in genetic liabilities to MDD, BD and schizophrenia may explain differences in the severity of mania, depression and psychosis in bipolar patients. These sources of heterogeneity could inform the use of unique treatment approaches across patients.

4/5 They found that the unique genetic factors for bipolar and schizophrenia were associated with higher mania severity but this was driven by psychosis presence for SCZ, which may mean there are 2 distinct genetic subfactors defined by mania with or without psychosis.

3/5 The genetic factor which distinguished MDD from bipolar and schizophrenia was positively associated with depression symptoms but negatively associated with mania symptoms. This suggests that a patient's genetic liability to MDD may predict differences in their manic symptoms.

2/5 Both studies took unique approaches to explore bipolar heterogeneity — today we are focusing on Richards and colleagues who identified genetic factors unique to BD, MDD or schizophrenia and explored how those factors were associated with the bipolar symptoms.

1/5 Merola et al. (2026) and Richards et al. (2022) used genomic structural equation modelling (gSEM) to identify latent genetic constructs and explore how they map onto observed traits.

📄Paper: Merola et al. Biological Psychiatry (2026)
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

3/3 This highlights how differences in genetic risk for manic symptoms may lead to differences in how BD presents in patients. Research like this can help us identify unique mechanisms across subgroups of patients which could lead to more personalised & effective treatments.

2/3 They identified 37 loci associated with mania, 18 of which were distinct from bipolar disorder. These mania specific loci were linked to calcium signalling. Mania and BD showed differences in genetic correlations with various psychiatric, social & somatic traits.

1/3 Today we are focusing on Merola et al. who identified a mania specific genetic factor (unique from depression and psychosis) and explored its relationships with bipolar, MDD and schizophrenia.

There is high heterogeneity in the presentation of bipolar disorder which could be explained by differences in genetic risk for specific symptoms or related mental health conditions. Over the next three days, we will be discussing research aiming to understand this better ✨

Postpartum Psychosis and Bipolar Disorder: Review of Neurobiology and Expert Consensus Statement on Classification Postpartum psychosis (PP) is an acute and severe psychiatric illness with onset within weeks after delivery and a high risk of suicide and infanticide…

Bergink et al., Biological Psychiatry (2025) 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/h...
#PostpartumPsychosis #MaternalMentalHealth #Psychiatry #WomensHealth #DSM

5/5 The panel has been working since 2020 to push for change. This consensus statement is a major step. It's time PP is taken seriously as the distinct, treatable emergency it is.

4/5 With inpatient care and stepwise therapy — including benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, and lithium — PP achieves a 98% remission rate. The problem isn't treatment, it's recognition. A formal diagnosis would enable earlier intervention and better prevention for women at risk.

3/5 An international expert panel is calling for PP to be recognised as a distinct disorder in the DSM — within the bipolar spectrum. Key reasons: 50% of women with PP develop BD, lithium works excellently, and the genetic architecture overlaps substantially (but not completely).

2/5 The odds of psychosis/mania are increased 10-fold the first few weeks postpartum compared to any other time in a woman's life. Many patients are misdiagnosed with a range of psychiatric disorders, resulting in misinformed treatment and increased morbidity and mortality.

1/5 Postpartum psychosis (PP) is an acute and severe psychiatric illness with onset within weeks of delivery, and a high risk of suicide and infanticide. It affects around 2.6 in every 1,000 women after giving birth, yet it is not recognised in the DSM-5 or the ICD-11.