Abstract
Background: The clinical effectiveness of lithium may be due to its decreasing the
intracellular concentration of myo-inositol and increasing that of its inositol monophosphate precursors, which is known
as the inositol depletion hypothesis.
Methods: Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to measure the concentration
of both myo-inositol (1H MRS) and phosphomonoesters (PME) [31P MRS], in healthy volunteers in a double-blind placebo-controlled study. MRS measurements
were made at baseline, again on the 7th day of lithium (1200 mg, n = 10) or placebo (n = 6) administration, and again on day 8, 2 hours following oral administration of
20 mg dextroamphetamine to stimulate the phosphoinositol (PI) cycle.
Results: Subjects who received lithium showed a greater increase in PME ratios in
response to amphetamine administration than did placebo-treated subjects.
Conclusions: The present results support the hypothesis that lithium administration
blocks the conversion of inositol monophosphates to myo-inositol, and that this effect is especially apparent following PI cycle stimulation.
The effects of lithium treatment on myo-inositol in healthy volunteers in vivo are uncertain, and may have to await improvements
in the ability to measure myo-inositol in the brain.
Keywords: Lithium, inositol, bipolar disorder, amphetamine, magnetic resonance spectroscopy
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 17,
1999
Received in revised form:
March 10,
1999
Received:
November 4,
1998
Identification
Copyright
© 1999 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
