A weighty topic

A naturalistic study of antipsychotic-induced weight gain in bipolar disorder¹

Atypical antipsychotics can cause weight gain as a side effect, leading to patient dissatisfaction with treatment that could potentially affect adherence. As not all patients experience this weight gain, a Swedish team investigated how weight gain is affected by treatment with antipsychotics and adjunctive mood stabilisers. The team collected registry data for a total of 1141 patents; 575 treated with mood stabilisers and antipsychotics, and 566 treated with mood stabilisers alone. Interestingly, they found that there was no difference in weight gain (either absolute weight gain or BMI) between each group, meaning that antipsychotic treatment was not associated with weight gain. Doctor Najar provided this correspondent with an insight into his thoughts on the results. He acknowledged his surprise that there was no evidence of significant weight gain with atypical antipsychotics but emphasised that this was a naturalistic study reflecting real-world experiences. His next step, he said, will be to look into how treatment with antipsychotics affects metabolic factors, and potentially in the future, genetic markers.

Altered hemispheric dominance for language in patients with bipolar disorder: evidence from ERPs²

A team from the University of Padua, Italy investigated the potential for links between loss of hemispheric specialisation for linguistic processing and abnormalities in automatic and controlled phases of word processing in patients with bipolar disorder. The team studied this by measuring electrophysiological activity in bipolar patients and healthy controls to analyse automatic (N150) and controlled (CNV) language-related activation in different phrases of word processing. The team found that bipolar patients exhibited a pattern of activation similar to healthy controls except for automatic (N150) language-related activation where bipolar patients showed significant lack of lateralisation. Bipolar patients showed bilateral activation in phonological processing and patients with lower levels of language-related laterality had more severe mania symptoms, suggesting that an altered left linguistic centre plays a role in the symptoms of psychosis.

Well that ends the ECNP coverage from this correspondent. Having the opportunity to cover these poster sessions has provided a valuable insight into clinical research, with a wide range of topics being easily accessible. It was especially rewarding to be able to talk to the authors of the papers to learn more about their passion for the topic and their research directions. This correspondent looks forward to delving into more research at EPA 2015.

Continue the conversation on Twitter #ECNP2014