review lithium as mood stabilizer

1.Lithium as a mood stabilizer has been used as the standard pharmacological treatment for Bipolar Disorder (BD)  

2.Recent studies have also shown that it has the potential for the treatment of many other neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, through its neurotrophic, neuroprotective, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions.

-- Therefore, exploring its pharmacokinetic features and designing better lithium preparations are becoming important research topics. 

---Lithium is rapidly and completely absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract after oral administration. Its level is initially highest in serum and then is evidently redistributed to various tissue compartments. It is not metabolized and over 95% of lithium is excreted unchanged through the kidney, but different lithium preparations may have different pharmacokinetic features. Lithium has a narrow therapeutic window limited by various adverse effects, but some novel drugs of lithium may overcome these problems. Various formulations of lithium have the potential for treating neurodegenerative brain diseases but further study on their pharmacokinetics will be required in order to determine the optimal formulation, dosage and route of administration.

3.  Findings 

1.recent work has shown that lith-

ium can increase neurogenesis in the subventricular zone of

the lateral ventricle, rostral migratory stream and olfactory

bulb, with the restoration of olfactory performance in an ag-

ing mouse model of Downs syndrome [80]. 2.The effects of

lithium on the expression and functions of key genes and

genetic molecular mechanisms involving microRNAs in neu-

rodegenerative disease are additional important future areas

of investigation 

3.Lithium could also down-regulate

brain arachidonic acid cascade metabolism, and it was con-

sistent with up-regulated AA cascade markers in the post-

mortem BD brain .

  

Ref: A Review for Lithium: Pharmacokinetics, Drug Design, and Toxicity

Jinhua Wen1,*

, Darrell Sawmiller2,*

, Brendan Wheeldon2 and Jun Tan2

1

Department of Pharmacy, the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China; 2

Department of Psy-

chiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA