Trials on Using Heart Drug to Treat Bipolar Disorder in Progress, Says Aus Scientist at IAN Meet

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Clinical trials in human beings are in progress on using heart drug for the treatment of bipolar disorder following its successful trials in cells and rats, said neuroscientist Dr Jee Hyun Kim, Deakin University, Australia.

Dr Kim was delivering the plenary talk on the third day of the 43rd Annual Meeting of Indian Academy of Neurosciences (IAN) here today. The four-day event is hosted by Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (BRIC-RGCB), at Kovalam here.

Speaking on ‘A Platform for Novel Therapy Development: The Discovery of Trimetazidine to Treat Bipolar Depression,’ Dr Kim said a heart drug is being trialled in India for treating bipolar depression. It is a drug that gives energy to the brain by reducing fat-burning and promoting sugar-burning in the brain.

Noting that the heart drug can target bipolar depression brain biology is a revelation, Dr Kim said “Biologically, trimetazidine, a heart drug used in the treatment of angina pectoris (a condition characterised by chest pain due to reduced blood flow to the heart), can reverse the bipolar depression biology. Deakin University is collaborating with NIMHANS, Bengaluru and the Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) in Ranchi for the clinical trials.”

She said basically, bipolar disorder is an energy disorder whereas in mania, one will feel too much confident and energetic, besides becoming irritable and taking risks; and in severe cases, there will be hallucination, disillusion and paranoia, followed by depression with not enough energy.

“In bipolar disorder, there will be weird fluctuations where one will have too much energy as well as and little energy. The lack of energy is associated with other things like severe stress in the cells,” Dr Kim noted.

The neuroscientist revealed that participants are being invited for the clinical trials which will be conducted adhering to strict screening by ensuring safety under the monitoring of specialised doctors.

She said across the world, about 1-2 percent of people have bipolar disorder and India has a significant number of bipolar disorder cases; possibly resulting from warm weather and other medical factors.

In another session, Dr Ila Fiete, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, spoke on ‘Associative and Episodic Memory from Pre-structured Spatial Scaffolds in the Hippocampus.’

The October 29-November 1 conference features top scientists and domain experts from leading institutions from India and abroad.