title: Is bipolar disorder an inflammatory condition? The relevance of microglial activation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Literature published over the past few years indicates that bipolar disorder has an inflammatory component but does not explicitly define bipolar disorder as an inflammatory or a noninflammatory condition.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Recent studies have shown that bipolar disorder involves microglial activation and alterations in peripheral cytokines and have pointed to the efficacy of adjunctive anti-inflammatory therapies in bipolar depression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The presence of active microglia and increased proinflammatory cytokines in bipolar disorder suggests an important role of inflammatory components in the pathophysiology of the disease, as well as a possible link between neuroinflammation and peripheral toxicity.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry, Centro de Pesquisas Experimentais, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, and INCT for Translational Medicine, Brazil.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stertz
authors.forename: Pedro V S
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Magalhães
authors.forename: Flávio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kapczinski
mesh_terms: D052636:Allostasis / Q000502:physiology; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D017628:Microglia / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines