Bipolar Disorder: Controversies and Unmet Needs

Dear Colleagues,

In the last several decades, psychiatric disorders pertaining to the bipolar affective spectrum have seen a strong impulse in research, which translated into improved standards of diagnosis, prognosis, and care of patients affected by bipolar disorders (BDs). Despite these progresses, research on BDs still fails to provide evidence-based conclusions allowing for good reliability in diagnosis or anchoring any attempt of prognosis with validated course markers. Heterogeneous courses and outcomes of illness follow the diagnosis of BDs, which embraces patients with milder affective disorders, as well as patients with severe manifestations with psychotic symptoms persisting beyond acute episodes defined as schizoaffective. There are treatments specifically approved for BDs, yet part of the therapeutic management still relies on drugs investigated on the basis of acute cross-sectional similarities with major depression, as in the case of antidepressants. Efforts to consolidate neurobiological underpinnings of this syndrome reinforce the possibility of a stratification of patients within the diagnostic framework of BDs.

The present Special Issue aims to explore the neglected or understudied topics which still appear problematic and scarcely explored in BDs, including but not limited to the diagnostic boundaries of the spectrum (schizoaffective disorder bipolar type on one side, cyclothymia and recurring depression on the other), the specific characteristics of BD type II, the role of comorbidities, especially with personality disorders, the possible definition of the BD diagnosis with a neurobiology-based framework as the RDoC initiative, the possible implementation of staging models and stage-specific treatments, and the methodological pitfalls in treatment trial design for BDs.

Dr. Andrea Murru
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Clinical Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• bipolar disorders
• schizoaffective disorder
• psychiatric disorders
• depression