In a study just published on PLoS One entitled “Lithium Impacts on the Amplitude and Period of the Molecular Circadian Clockwork,” researchers at the University of Manchester (Jian Li, Wei-Qun Lu, Stephen Beesley, Andrew S. I. Loudon, and Qing-Jun Meng) have discovered that lithium works as a pacemaker for the circadian clock, which may help to explain lithium’s mechanism of action – how it works.

In Part I of this two-part series, I discuss the differences between bipolar and borderline personality disorder in terms of diagnosis. In this part, I focus on differences in treatments for the two conditions.

Treating Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder has been considered a biological illness for many years, and the research has focused largely on medications. A standard repertoire of medications is used to treat bipolar: