What causes bipolar disorder?

In this video, HealthMaker Ellen Leibenluft, MD, chief of bipolar spectrum disorders at the National Institute of Mental Health, describes how factors such as hormones, stress, and preexisting mood and anxiety problems can cause bipolar disorder.

Transcript

00:00

Most children-- if you have a parent with bipolar disorder, and that parent has a child, that child will likely not

00:09

develop bipolar disorder, OK? I want to make that really clear. [UPBEAT MUSIC]

00:19

Even in children or adolescents who have their first manic episode or depressive episode--

00:29

in adolescence, there often is some evidence of some mood problem or an anxiety problem in childhood,

00:37

although it's important to say that bipolar disorder has a one-to-one gender ratio, OK? So boys and girls, men and women are

00:45

as likely to have bipolar disorder. But nonetheless, there's a lot going on hormonally

00:51

around adolescence. There's a lot going on in terms of lifestyle. There's evidence that the sleep-wake cycle can impact

00:59

on tipping off a manic episode. Of course, any kind of illicit drug use could very well tip off something

01:08

that was brewing but make it really happen, and that's going on in adolescence. And stress-- we know that high stress increases risk

01:17

for all psychiatric illnesses, including episodes of mania and depression. And adolescence is a high-stress time because

01:24

of all the changes going on. Oh, the other thing that's important to say is that we do know that there is a genetic component to bipolar

01:33

disorder. Now, one important thing to know is that most children-- if you have a parent with bipolar disorder,

01:41

and that parent has a child, that child will likely not develop bipolar disorder, OK?

01:48

I want to make that really clear. But having said that, we do know that there is a genetic component to who's at greater risk for bipolar

01:58

disorder. And we know that certain genes come online and start to be expressed. Different genes are expressed at different times of life.

02:05

So it may be that that also is contributing to why we see the average age of onset

02:13

being in adolescence, early adulthood. [AUDIO LOGO]