Based on existing research, a genetic diathesis-transactional stress model is proposed incorporating childhood abuse and the BDNF gene in the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder.
The BDNF exon I promoter methylation resulted to be significantly increased in MDD subjects compared to BD subjects (p=0.0089) and control subjects (p<0.001).
Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD) patients show a downregulation of GAD67, reelin (RELN), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and other genes expressed in telencephalic GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons.
Literatures published and cited in Pubmed and Wanfang Data was searched with terms of 'Val66Met', 'G196A', 'rs6265', 'BDNF', 'association', and 'bipolar disorder' up to March 2014.