However, scientists have never been entirely sure exactly how it operates in the human brain.
Now, new research from Cardiff University scientists suggests a mechanism for how Lithium works, opening the door for potentially more effective treatments.
Laboratory tests on cells have shown that Lithium affects a molecule called PIP3 that is important in controlling brain cell signalling. Lithium suppresses the production of inositol, a simple sugar from which PIP3 is made.
Lithium inhibits inositol monophosphatase (IMPase) an enzyme required for making inositol. Importantly, this research shows that increasing the amount of IMPase causes higher levels of PIP3. This can then be reduced by lithium treatment.
High levels of IMPA2, a gene for a variant of IMPase, has previously been linked to bipolar mood disorder. This new result suggests that Lithium could counteract the changes in IMPA2.
Professor Adrian Harwood of Cardiff School of Biosciences, who led the research, said: "We still cannot say definitively how Lithium can help stabilise bipolar disorder. However, our research does suggest a possible pathway for its operation. By better understanding Lithium, we can learn about the genetics of bipolar disorder and develop more potent and selective drugs.
"Further, altered PIP3 signalling is linked to other disorders, including epilepsy and autism, so this well established drug could be used to treat other conditions. Research into Lithium could become very important over the next few years."
Lithium is currently under clinical trial for the treatment of neurogenerative disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is published in the journal Disease Models and Mechanisms .
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"This important finding about biological function associated with prostate cancer risk demonstrates the power of genome-wide association studies to provide new and unexpected insights into the genetic underpinnings of cancer etiology," said Joseph F. Fraumeni, Jr., M.D., director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, excluding skin cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men in the United States. African American men have the highest risk of developing this disease compared with men of other racial and ethnic groups. Most of the CGEMS genome-wide association study data are from white men. The Yeager team is currently working with other researchers to evaluate whether the SNP is also associated with prostate cancer among other ethnic groups.
In addition to Yeager, the study was led by Stephen Chanock, M.D., also of DCEG and Michael Dean, Ph.D., and Hong Lou, Ph.D., of NCI's Center for Cancer Research.
For more information on NCI's Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) initiative, please visit cgemsncer.
NCI leads the National Cancer Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at cancer or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.
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