PhD candidate Sara Crellin has conducted research into bipolar disorder.
When a light goes out, people often assume the bulb is blown. But what if something has actually happened to its electrical wires?
This is how PhD candidate Sara Crellin framed her research into bipolar disorder.
“A light bulb can’t shine if the cable is broken,” she says.
A brain is made up of a “hundred billion” neurons (the light bulbs), with “100 trillion connections” between them (the cables); the neurons do not work in isolation, Sara says. Meanwhile, the majority of neuroscience surrounding psychiatric disorders and drug treatments focuses on the neurons.
She believes her research is something of a first.
“No one had done a comprehensive investigation as to whether the treatments in bipolar, particularly lithium, could alter the way that electricity flows down a cable.”
It had been well established in clinical neuroimaging studies that the integrity of cables of those with bipolar disorder is compromised, but she could not find evidence of someone looking at this topic on a pharmacological or electrophysiological level in the lab, she says.
Sara developed a new preparation to examine cable functioning, which she started developing during her undergrad. Looking at the cables while using her preparation was “surprisingly novel” approach, she says.
The regions of the brain associated with emotion and cognition are two prominent regions that are affected by bipolar disorder. They’re also quite far apart, meaning there is a lot of “cable mileage” which could be failing to function properly.
Sara says 2.1 per cent of New Zealanders are affected by bipolar disorder, but 3.6 per cent of Pacifica and 4.6 per cent of Māori are affected, making it “very disproportionate”.
Sara has always wanted to conduct research in field of clinical psychiatry to help improve treatments and diagnostics.
“Psychiatry is, I feel, one of the few fields where the brain isn’t quite treated like an organ with cellular dysfunction. It’s still very subjective.”
In addition to affecting the brain, bipolar disorder can also come with a reduced life expectancy of 10 years, as a result of an increased prevalence in cardiovascular issues, inflammation related disorders and diabetes.
“This is a psychiatric disorder linked with so many physiological problems … you’re genetically predisposed, it comes on overnight, you then continue to have episodes throughout your life – it’s not very typical of a behavioural disorder … where in the brain is the anatomy going wrong?”
Sara would like to help scientists understand the brain and its cellular disfunction as an organ, and for that information to be readily available – and understandable – for the public.
“If you can give that information to the public, you can create empathy for self and empathy for others, which facilitates healing a lot.”
“A huge part of holistic healing and psychiatric disorder is a community that supports you. You can handle it with so much more grace when you understand what is happening.”
She would like people to know that medication isn’t a weakness, that it’s required to restore cellular functioning, which might help people adhere to their medication.
“Psychiatric research is for more than a cure, it’s just to help us understand our brain.”
-Kōrero by internal communications adviser, Koren Allpress