It’s old news in terms of the 24 hour news cycle, but I came across an article about brain scans between people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Interestingly enough, in terms of how they appear in the brain, they work in a similar fashion around the hippocampus area. Specifically in the CA 2 and the CA 3 areas.
What does the hippocampus do then? And what are the CAs (cornu ammonis regions)? Primarily, the hippocampus is involved in memory with the CAs as the specific subregions of it. But it does not deal with motor skills or cognitive skills like playing a musical instrument. Rather, one of the roles is in detecting novel events, places, and stimuli ( VanElzakker 2008 ). Its role also includes encoding stimuli in environmental contexts. So what this means is that in terms of interacting with environments, individuals with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia both see novel events in a similar fashion. Personally, I find this a fascinating result since it appears that to some degree, individuals with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia not only see the world in a similar way, but also view it differently from normal people. Perhaps this explains the environmental sensitivity found in both disorders, perhaps it doesn’t. But the findings are there and are interesting none the less. Additionally, since the hippocampus is also involved in long term memory, the reduced size of the hippocampus might explain the memory problems associated with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
However, the similarities do not extend that far. In a study conducted in scanning the grey and white matter of the brains of individuals with schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder, there were few similarities found. In a BJPsych publication , in schizophrenic individuals, there were reductions in grey matter of the temporal lobes, the neocortex, thalmus, and white matter in the cerebellum. These areas are involved in attention, language, emotional regulation, and conscious thought. The only similarities found were in the white matter, the cerebellum, which is involved in emotional regulation.
Furthermore, in a recent UCLA study , researchers found an overlap in genetic markers for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Of the 7 genetic markers found in schizophrenia, researchers found an overlap of 3 genetic loci between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
What these results demonstrate is that there is a fair amount of overlap between these two diseases. This might be enough to explain why medications for both are so similar. Yet, there are marked differences between the diseases, even between psychotic bipolar individuals and schizophrenia. With these differences, it means that the different classification of the two diseases is well founded, even though there is strong overlap between the DSM IV classification of both conditions with psychotic symptoms. While this is all fairly technical, I do find it an interesting result. I often associated psychotic symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia as being identical or very similar in some way. Rather, there is a general result that the two disorders are caused in the same way, but present different models in the brain. So there you have it, a crash course in the differences between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. They seem similar, and they are to some degree, but primarily in the response to new environmental cues and emotional regulation. After that, even the psychotic symptoms differ in their presentation in the brain.
Philosophy, Science, Bipolar I, and Life
It’s old news in terms of the 24 hour news cycle, but I came across an article about brain scans between people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Interestingly enough, in terms of how they appear in the brain, they work in a similar fashion around the hippocampus area. Specifically in the CA 2 and the CA 3 areas.
What does the hippocampus do then? And what are the CAs (cornu ammonis regions)? Primarily, the hippocampus is involved in memory with the CAs as the specific subregions of it. But it does not deal with motor skills or cognitive skills like playing a musical instrument. Rather, one of the roles is in detecting novel events, places, and stimuli ( VanElzakker 2008 ). Its role also includes encoding stimuli in environmental contexts. So what this means is that in terms of interacting with environments, individuals with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia both see novel events in a similar fashion. Personally, I find this a fascinating result since it appears that to some degree, individuals with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia not only see the world in a similar way, but also view it differently from normal people. Perhaps this explains the environmental sensitivity found in both disorders, perhaps it doesn’t. But the findings are there and are interesting none the less. Additionally, since the hippocampus is also involved in long term memory, the reduced size of the hippocampus might explain the memory problems associated with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
However, the similarities do not extend that far. In a study conducted in scanning the grey and white matter of the brains of individuals with schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder, there were few similarities found. In a BJPsych publication , in schizophrenic individuals, there were reductions in grey matter of the temporal lobes, the neocortex, thalmus, and white matter in the cerebellum. These areas are involved in attention, language, emotional regulation, and conscious thought. The only similarities found were in the white matter, the cerebellum, which is involved in emotional regulation.
Furthermore, in a recent UCLA study , researchers found an overlap in genetic markers for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Of the 7 genetic markers found in schizophrenia, researchers found an overlap of 3 genetic loci between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
What these results demonstrate is that there is a fair amount of overlap between these two diseases. This might be enough to explain why medications for both are so similar. Yet, there are marked differences between the diseases, even between psychotic bipolar individuals and schizophrenia. With these differences, it means that the different classification of the two diseases is well founded, even though there is strong overlap between the DSM IV classification of both conditions with psychotic symptoms. While this is all fairly technical, I do find it an interesting result. I often associated psychotic symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia as being identical or very similar in some way. Rather, there is a general result that the two disorders are caused in the same way, but present different models in the brain. So there you have it, a crash course in the differences between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. They seem similar, and they are to some degree, but primarily in the response to new environmental cues and emotional regulation. After that, even the psychotic symptoms differ in their presentation in the brain.