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Psychiatrists currently have no valid way to select among available mood stabilizers for treating patients with bipolar disorder. In this genetics study, researchers in Taiwan carefully measured lithium response with a reliable scale that confirmed adherence and documented severity, frequency, and duration of episodes, and they eliminated responders also receiving other mood stabilizers.
The researchers identified two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the GADL1 gene associated with response in a discovery cohort of 294 Han Chinese patients with bipolar I disease and a minimum of 2 years of lithium treatment (maximum, 28 years). Findings were confirmed in a replication cohort of 100 patients, with response in both cohorts predicted at…