Explorando la importancia del factor genético en el trastorno bipolar: a propósito de un episodio simultáneo de manía en gemelas monocigóticas

Abstract

Background

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric disease that causes mood instability, with episodes of depression, mania or hypomania depending on the type, causing dysfunction in the patient's daily life. In this pathology genetics plays a fundamental role with a high percentage of heritability.

Case

Two monozygotic twins with a manic episode with psychotic symptoms that started almost simultaneously, requiring institutional management due to the severity of their symptoms, with similarities in their clinical picture and poor therapeutic response to first line antipsychotics, and clinical improvement only after the administration of clozapine, despite being treated in different psychiatric institutions. This highlights the genetic influence on the disease and its treatment.

Discussion

Cases such as the one presented above help to focus our attention on the importance of the genetic factor in psychiatric pathologies, in which although progress has been made over time in the knowledge of this association, there is still much to investigate and perhaps this It is the key to finding a «specific» treatment for each patient in a more precise and affordable way, reducing the time of untreated psychosis and brain damage.