Pharmacological Treatments for Bipolar Disorder: Present and Future

Abstract

Pharmacological intervention is very important in acute and maintance treatment of bipolar disorder. To review new pharmacological treatments for bipolar disorder used in the last years and perspectives for the future. Searches were undertaken in PubMed and other databases, from 2009 to 2014,using keywords ‘pharmacological treatments’, ‘bipolar disorder’, ‘new medications’. Last generation anticonvulsants (e.g. lamotrigine, oxcarbazepine, carbamazepine, topiramate) have not corresponded to the large expectation about their efficacy and acceptability for the treatment of bipolar disorder. On the other hand, some atypical antipsychotics (e.g. olanzapine, quetiapine) have been shown efficacy for acute mania in monotherapy or association and also for acute treatment or prevention of bipolar depression. In the last years new therapeutic targets for bipolar disorder treatment have been investigated, including dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems (e.g. pramipexol, ketamine). In the last years, new treatment strategies for bipolar disorder included last generation anticonvulsants and atypical antipychotics. Also, there have been made clinical and pre-clinical studies to find new therapeutic targets for future medications.