A new study into the soothing effects of lithium on the bipolar brain could pave the way for future research into tackling mental health conditions.

The news follows a neuroscientific study into the drug’s effect on dendritic spines – which researchers describe as miniature projections where excitatory neurons form synapses or connections with separate nerve cells.

Scientists at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) carried out a study on mice, and found that the drug successfully restored dendritic spines which had been artificially engineered to carry a gene mutation common in people with bipolar disorder.

Researchers have said that such mutations in dendritic spines are also common in those who have other mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia and autism.

Perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of UCSF’s study was that it also revealed that lithium reversed negative social symptoms in the mice, such as lack of interest in interacting with others.

Scott Soderling, neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, commented: “They showed there’s a correlation between the ability of lithium to reverse not only the behavioural abnormalities in the mice, but also the [dendritic] spine abnormalities.

He suggested that the study could help to aid future research.

“It [the study] gives further credence to this idea that these spine abnormalities are functionally linked to the behavioural disorders,” he said.