Author(s)

Jinghan Li

Corresponding Author

Jinghan Li

ABSTRACT

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that is present in 4.8% of the global population at least once in their lifetime and has significant impact on patients’ physical and mental health. Physiology of bipolar disorder, as well as the mechanism of action of the primary medicine for treating bipolar disorder- lithium that has been found to exhibit neuroprotectiveness and regulatory effect on neurotransmitters- is not clearly understood. This article briefly summarizes contributing mechanisms of bipolar disorder and proposed mechanism of action of lithium in treating the disease. However, no single mechanism is responsible for the multifaceted effect of lithium on bipolar disorder, and the underlying mechanisms still require extensive investigation. Deepening the understanding of pharmacology of lithium is likely to help in finding more and better treatments for bipolar disorder and also in implicating on mechanism of bipolar disorder.

KEYWORDS

Bipolar Disorder, Mechanisms, Lithium, Pharmacology