Let´s talk about it: Bipolar Disorder

By Carolina Rauert, Constanza Grulich, Valerie Córdoba, Lucía Couto and Eloisa Ostrogovich

In order to understand Bipolar Disorder, we made a brainstorming session writing down all the questions about this disease that came to our mind. Finally, we decided to go for three priority questions:

• Why and how does the phase change occur? The disorder changes something in your brain while you are having a phase? And if it does, what is changed?Hypothesis: The phase change occurs because they are going through a stressful or difficult time. In our opinion something in the frontal lobe changes. In a phase some neurons are "activated" and when the phase changes these are "deactivated" and those of the other phase are "activated".

• Are there different levels of bipolarity, which ones? Can bipolar be worsened or improved? Hypothesis: Yes, we believe that there are different levels of bipolarity. The level changes depending on how developed your brain is. Also, we believe that the disease can get worse if it is not treated, and there is also the possibility of improvement if it is treated.

• What is the difference between a child and an adult who has bipolar disorder? Which is more dangerous? Hypothesis: The difference would be that it is more difficult to control the child than the adult because the child does not fully understand what is happening to him. We believe that in adults it is more dangerous because it is more developed than the child.