Study Description and Background

Bipolar disorder remains a prevalent and morbid psychiatric disorder. Although medications for bipolar disorder have substantially improved the prognosis of bipolar disorder, many individuals are unable to tolerate treatment related side-effects.

Therefore, an important role for brain imaging in individuals with bipolar disorder would be to provide evidence for a better understanding of the disease and to identify and delineate new treatments, having enhanced efficacy and reduced side effects.

We propose to use a type of brain scan to allow us to measure the concentration of certain brain chemicals in individuals with bipolar disorder. Our study consists of a psychiatric evaluation and a single brain scan. The brain scan lasts about 90 minutes.

The study brochure can be downloaded here