Adult postmortem brain tissue (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) from subjects with bipolar disorder and healthy controls

Bipolar affective disorder is a severe psychiatric disorder with a strong genetic component but unknown pathophysiology. We used microarray technology (Affymetrix HG-U133A GeneChips) to determine the expression of approximately 22 000 mRNA transcripts in post-mortem brain tissue (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) from patients with bipolar disorder and matched healthy controls. A cohort of 70 subjects was investigated and the final analysis included 30 bipolar and 31 control subjects. Differences between disease and control groups were identified using a rigorous statistical analysis with correction for confounding variables and multiple testing. Keywords: disease state analysis RNA extracted from human postmortem brain tissue from adult subjects with bipolar disorder and healthy controls was hybridised to Affymetrix HG-U133A GeneChips to identify differentially expressed genes in the disease state.