The Science & Treatment of Bipolar Disorder | Huberman Lab Essentials

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, [music] where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based [music] tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are going to be discussing bipolar disorder, often called bipolar depression.

Bipolar depression is a condition in which people undergo massive shifts in their energy, their perception, and their mood. However, it is very important to note that these shifts in mood, energy, and perception are all maladaptive. They can often cause tremendous damage to the person

suffering from bipolar disorder and tremendous damage to the people in their lives. In fact, people suffering from bipolar disorder are at 20 to 30 times greater risk of suicide. So, today is a serious discussion and it's certainly one in which people who are suffering from manic bipolar disorder or who know

people that are suffering from manic bipolar disorder can benefit from. So, bipolar disorder impacts about 1% of people. That might seem like a small percentage, but if you think about a room of 100 people, that means that at least one of them is very likely to have bipolar disorder.

The typical age of onset is anywhere from 20 to 25 years old, although it can be much earlier. There are basically two kinds of bipolar disorder, referred to as bipolar 1 and bipolar 2. Bipolar 1 is characterized by a fairly extended period of mania. What is mania? Mania is a period of very elevated mood, energy,

distractibility, impulsivity, and some other symptomatology that we'll talk about going forward. But, this manic episode is extreme. One of the key clinical criteria or diagnostic criteria for bipolar 1 is that a person suffer from these manic episodes or display these manic episodes for 7 days or more.

Typically, a person will be brought into a clinic or a person would bring themselves to a clinic or meet with a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist is going to start to evaluate for a couple of different things. But first of all, what they're going to try and figure out is whether or not the person has at

least three of the following symptoms. The first symptom is distractibility. People who are in a manic episode will be talking about a pen and then they'll be talking about, you know, something they saw the other day and then something they want to purchase and then a place they're going to travel to, etc.

But they are also very prone to any stimulus within the room. So, highly impulsive. Impulsivity relates to actions. So, the person might be fidgeting with something and then they might try and leave the other is grandiosity. People who have manic bipolar disorder who are in a manic episode will often display

words of or actions of grandiosity. These are actual beliefs that the person comes to have about their grandiose position in the world or grandiose opportunities or potential in the world.

Flight of ideas are also typical of manic episodes. So, this is a little bit like distractibility, but this would be people talking extensively about one thing and then switching and talking extensively about something else. The other aspect of manic bipolar disorder that often presents itself in the manic