@article{VolkertZierhutSchieleetal.2014,
  author    = {Volkert, Julia and Zierhut, Kathrin C. and Schiele, Miriam A. and Wenzel, Martina and Kopf, Juliane and Kittel-Schneider, Sarah and Reif, Andreas},
  title     = {Predominant polarity in bipolar disorder and validation of the polarity index in a German sample},
  doi       = {10.1186/s12888-014-0322-8},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-111042},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {Background: A large number of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) can be characterized by predominant polarity (PP), which has important implications for relapse prevention. Recently, Popovic et al. (EUR NEUROPSYCHOPHARM 22(5): 339-346, 2012) proposed the Polarity Index (PI) as a helpful tool in the maintenance treatment of BD. As a numeric expression, it reflects the efficacy of drugs used in treatment of BD. In the present retrospective study, we aimed to validate this Index in a large and well characterized German bipolar sample. Methods: We investigated 336 bipolar patients (BP) according to their PP and calculated the PI for each patient in order to prove if maintenance treatment differs according to their PP. Furthermore, we analysed whether PP is associated with demographic and clinical characteristics of BP. Results: In our sample, 63.9\% of patients fulfilled criteria of PP: 169 patients were classified as depressive predominant polarity (DPP), 46 patients as manic predominant polarity (MPP). The two groups differed significantly in their drug regime: Patients with DPP were more often medicated with lamotrigine and antidepressants, patients with MPP were more often treated with lithium, valproate, carbamazepine and first generation antipsychotics. However, patients with DPP and MPP did not differ significantly with respect to the PI, although they received evidence-based and guideline-driven treatment. Conclusion: The reason for this negative finding might well be that for several drugs, which were used frequently, no PI value is available. Nevertheless we suggest PP as an important concept in the planning of BD maintenance treatment.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{EversVeehMcNeilletal.2019,
  author    = {Evers, Ann-Kristin and Veeh, Julia and McNeill, Rhiannon and Reif, Andreas and Kittel-Schneider, Sarah},
  title     = {C-reactive protein concentration in bipolar disorder: association with genetic variants},
  series = {International Journal of Bipolar Disorders},
  volume    = {7},
  journal   = {International Journal of Bipolar Disorders},
  doi       = {10.1186/s40345-019-0162-z},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-202289},
  pages     = {26},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Background Several recent studies have investigated the role of C-reactive protein (CRP) in bipolar disorder (BD), but few studies have directly investigated the interaction between CRP genetic variants and peripheral CRP concentration across different phases of BD. In this study, we aimed to replicate previous findings that demonstrated altered CRP levels in BD, and to investigate whether there is an association of peripheral protein expression with genetic variants in the CRP gene. Methods 221 patients were included in the study, of which 183 (all episodes, 46 not medicated, 174 medicated) were genotyped for CRP single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) shown to influence peripheral CRP protein expression (rs1800947, rs2808630, rs1417938, rs1205). Results There were no differences in CRP levels associated with the genotypes, only regarding the rs1205 SNP there were significantly different CRP protein expression between the genotypes when taking body mass index, age, BD polarity, subtype and leukocyte number into account. However, we could show significantly elevated CRP protein expression in manic patients compared to euthymic and depressed patients, independent from genotype. Medication was found to have no effect on CRP protein expression. Conclusions These results indicate that low grade inflammation might play a role in mania and might be rather a state than a trait marker of bipolar disorder.},
  language  = {en}
}