Association of Occupational Dysfunction and Hospital Admissions With Different Polygenic Profiles in Bipolar Disorder.

Objective: Many but not all persons with bipolar disorder require hospital care because of severe mood episodes. Likewise, some but not all patients experience long-term occupational dysfunction that extends beyond acute mood episodes. It is not known whether these dissimilar outcomes of bipolar disorder are driven by different polygenic profiles.

Heterogeneity analysis provides evidence for a genetically homogeneous subtype of bipolar-disorder.

Background: Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a complex disease. It is heterogeneous, both at the phenotypic and genetic level, although the extent and impact of this heterogeneity is not fully understood. One way to assess this heterogeneity is to look for patterns in the subphenotype data.

Fine-mapping genomic loci refines bipolar disorder risk genes.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heritable mental illness with complex etiology. While the largest published genome-wide association study identified 64 BD risk loci, the causal SNPs and genes within these loci remain unknown. We applied a suite of statistical and functional fine-mapping methods to these loci, and prioritized 17 likely causal SNPs for BD.

Key subphenotypes of bipolar disorder are differentially associated with polygenic liabilities for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder.

Bipolar disorder (BD) features heterogenous clinical presentation and course of illness. It remains unclear how subphenotypes associate with genetic loadings of BD and related psychiatric disorders. We investigated associations between the subphenotypes and polygenic risk scores (PRS) for BD, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder (MDD) in two BD cohorts from Sweden (N = 5180) and the UK (N = 2577).

Sleep and Postpartum Psychosis: A Narrative Review of the Existing Literature.

Sleep problems are extremely common during the postpartum period. The role of sleep in the development of postpartum psychosis (PP) is, however, still under-researched. This narrative review aims to (1) provide a summary of the existing evidence for the associations between sleep problems and PP, (2) discuss the relevant risk factors associated with sleep problems and PP, and (3) suggest future lines of research in this area.

A case-control study of filicide/infanticide in 90 mothers.

This study aims to explore the clinical and socio-demographic characteristics of 30 women who committed filicide and compare them to those of 60 postpartum women who did not commit filicide, including 30 with severe postpartum mental illness and 30 without a known history of psychiatric disorders. Clinical assessment included a face-to-face interview with the Structured Clinical Interviews for DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II Disorders. Information on socio-economic, medical, and personal factors was collected using the Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and organized in a clinical vignette and OPCRIT ratings.

Postpartum and non-postpartum depression: a population-based matched case-control study comparing polygenic risk scores for severe mental disorders.

It remains inconclusive whether postpartum depression (PPD) and depression with onset outside the postpartum period (MDD) are genetically distinct disorders. We aimed to investigate whether polygenic risk scores (PGSs) for major mental disorders differ between PPD cases and MDD cases in a nested case-control study of 50,057 women born from 1981 to 1997 in the iPSYCH2015 sample in Demark. We identified 333 women with first-onset postpartum depression (PPD group), who were matched with 993 women with first-onset depression diagnosed outside of postpartum (MDD group), and 999 female population controls.

Specificity of polygenic signatures across symptom dimensions in bipolar disorder: an analysis of UK Bipolar Disorder Research Network data.

Background: Current definitions and clinical heterogeneity in bipolar disorder are major concerns as they obstruct aetiological research and impede drug development. Therefore, stratification of bipolar disorder is a high priority. To inform stratification, our analysis aimed to examine the patterns and relationships between polygenic liability for bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizophrenia with multidimensional symptom representations of bipolar disorder.

Formation of a stakeholder group of women with a lived experience of Post-partum Psychoses (PP) - Experience from a perinatal psychiatry service in India.

Our paper describes the process of creating a stakeholder group for service development and research in Postpartum Psychosis (PP) at a Perinatal Psychiatry Service in India. We involved women who have recovered from PP as `experts by experience' in identifying areas that need attention from a research and service perspectives. A total of 13 group meetings were conducted, in which 9 group meetings involved women with lived experiences of PP and 4 group meetings were with the family members involved in the care of women during the PP episode.

Borderline personality traits are differently associated with postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression episodes in women with bipolar disorder.

Background: Women with bipolar disorder have approximately 40 %-50 % chance of having a perinatal bipolar recurrence. Knowing the factors associated will be beneficial for the prediction and prevention of episodes. We aim to establish if borderline personality disorder traits, as measured by the BEST (Borderline Evaluation of Severity over Time) scale, are associated with perinatal psychiatric outcomes.

Genetic Liabilities Differentiating Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and Major Depressive Disorder, and Phenotypic Heterogeneity in Bipolar Disorder.

Importance: Understanding the origins of clinical heterogeneity in bipolar disorder (BD) will inform new approaches to stratification and studies of underlying mechanisms.

Objective: To identify components of genetic liability that are shared between BD, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder (MDD) and those that differentiate each disorder from the others and to examine associations between heterogeneity for key BD symptoms and each component.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Using data from the Bipolar Disorder Research Network in the United Kingdom, components of liability were identified by applying genomic structural equation modeling to genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia, BD, and MDD.

Exome sequencing in bipolar disorder identifies AKAP11 as a risk gene shared with schizophrenia.

We report results from the Bipolar Exome (BipEx) collaboration analysis of whole-exome sequencing of 13,933 patients with bipolar disorder (BD) matched with 14,422 controls. We find an excess of ultra-rare protein-truncating variants (PTVs) in patients with BD among genes under strong evolutionary constraint in both major BD subtypes. We find enrichment of ultra-rare PTVs within genes implicated from a recent schizophrenia exome meta-analysis (SCHEMA; 24,248 cases and 97,322 controls) and among binding targets of CHD8.

Mental health prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic in individuals with bipolar disorder: Insights from prospective longitudinal data.

Objectives: Many studies have examined the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of the public, but few have focused on individuals with existing severe mental illness with longitudinal data before and during the pandemic.

Aims: To investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of people with bipolar disorder (BD).

Methods: In an ongoing study of people with BD who used an online mood monitoring tool, True Colours, 356 participants provided weekly data on their mental health.

Associations Between Schizophrenia Polygenic Liability, Symptom Dimensions, and Cognitive Ability in Schizophrenia.

Importance: Schizophrenia is a clinically heterogeneous disorder. It is currently unclear how variability in symptom dimensions and cognitive ability is associated with genetic liability for schizophrenia.

Objective: To determine whether phenotypic dimensions within schizophrenia are associated with genetic liability to schizophrenia, other neuropsychiatric disorders, and intelligence.

Mood episodes in pregnancy and risk of postpartum recurrence in bipolar disorder: The Bipolar Disorder Research Network Pregnancy Study.

Background: Women with bipolar disorder (BD) are at high risk of mania/psychosis following childbirth. The risk factors for these episodes remain poorly understood and prospective studies are rare. Here, we examine whether mood episodes occurring within pregnancy predict postpartum recurrence in women with BD using a prospective design.