Understanding Emotion Regulation in Bipolar Disorder
Our team has been trying to understand the triggers of mania for the past 15 years. We know that mania is driven by genes and neurotransmitters, but we want to understand if social and psychological triggers can help us understand why manic symptoms unfold when they do. We believe that this type of research is needed to foster greater awareness of high risk periods, to help us develop better treatments, and to help people stay well for longer times.
Much of our current research is focused on understanding how people react to different kinds of events in their lives. We know that life events, including successes and failures, play a major role in triggering episodes. We want to understand more about how people with bipolar disorder respond to successes and failures in their lives.
We use interviews, questionnaires, computer tasks, and short film clips for these studies. Sometimes, we record heart rate and palm sweating, and at other times, we do studies using an fMRI scanner to study brain responses. We generally are more interested in how people respond to winning and success than stress. None of these studies interfere with treatment.
We are NOT currently recruiting for these studies. Check back to the UC Berkeley Mental Health website for updates about these types of studies.
For more information, you can call email us at Calmprogram@gmail.com.