Claudie Hooper

1. Background Despite the long therapeutic pedigree of lithium (Li) as a mood stabilizer [1], its mechanism of action is still unclear and use is associated with major side-effects [2]. The side effects are likely due to the non-specific effects of Li covering the modulation of serotonin [3,4], dopamine [5], and glutamate [6] neurotransmitters, and the inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) [7] and inositol monophosphatase [8,9].

Abstract Lithium is prescribed as a mood stabiliser in bipolar disorder and severe depression. However, the mechanism of action of Lithium is unknown and there are major side effects associated with prolonged medication. This motivates a search for safer alternative drug repurposing candidates. Given that the drug mechanism may be encoded in transcriptional changes we have generated the gene expression profile for acute Lithium treatment of cortical neuronal cultures.

Comment Cellular Signalling (2015) - pubmed: 25479589 doi: 10.1016/j.cellsig.2014.11.034 issn: 1873-3913 issn: 0898-6568 Rania Hallaq, Floriana Volpicelli, Inmaculada Cuchillo-Ibanez, Claudie Hooper, Keiko Mizuno, Dafe Uwanogho, Mirsada Causevic, Ayodeji Asuni, Alvina To, Salvador Soriano, K. Peter Giese, Simon Lovestone, Richard Killick