Bipolar Disorder has been listed as one of the leading disorders of the Global Burden of Diseases... Yet the amount of research and funding put towards it is abysmal. Laine and I share that during our clinical education, we were taught almost nothing about the experience of mania, diagnosing, or treating the disorders like Bipolar. This episode share's what we know so far (from the MANY articles Laine went through to try to make sense of it) and what's happening in the brain -- referencing studies from Harrison, Gettes, Tunbridge, Clark, Sahakian, and more. It also touches on what needs to be done to not only better support those who have experienced manic episodes or have been diagnosed, but what is required for the field of mental health to improve. The takeaways of this episode are some of our favorites -- you can hear it in Laine's voice at the end. Enjoy -- and as always, if you have any questions feel free to email us at [email protected]. REFERENCES Dionisio et al. - "Cognitive flexibility impairment and reduced frontal cortex BDNF expression in the ouabain model of mania" Dzirasa et al. - "Impaired Limbic Gamma Oscillatory Synchrony during Anxiety-Related Behavior in a Genetic Mouse Model of Bipolar Mania" Ferrari et al. - "Depression and Mania Induce Pro-inflammatory Activation of Macrophages Following Application of Serum from Individuals with Bipolar Disorder" Schmidta et al. - "Cerebrospinal fluid hypocretin-1 (orexin A) levels in mania compared to unipolar depression and healthy controls" de Soussa et al. - "Lithium increases plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor in acute bipolarmania: A preliminary 4-week study" Paul J. Harrison, John R. Geddes, and Elizabeth M. Tunbridge1 - "The Emerging Neurobiology of Bipolar Disorder" Luke Clark, Barbara J. Sahakian - "Cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging in bipolar disorder" G.S. Kirshenbaum, C. R. Burgess, N. De'ry, M. Fahnestock, J. H. Peever and J C Roder - "Attenuation of mania-like behavior in na+,k+-atpase a3 mutant mice by prospective therapies for bipolar disorder: melatonin and exercise" Emre Bora - "Neurocognitive features in clinical subgroups of bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis" Ryan W. Logan, Ph.D. and Colleen A. McClung, Ph.D. - "Animal Models of Bipolar Mania: The Past, Present and Future"