Bipolar II Disorder is not a manic-depressive illness. Hypomania is not mania- not by a long shot- and the neural processes involved in the production of hypomania in both Bipolar II and Bipolar I brains differ radically. More importantly, we know a lot about the processes underlying true mania. We have specific programs poposed- studying Na,K-ATPase, unusual gene adaptations, and the melatonin system.

None of this stuff applies properly to Bipolar II. Bipolar II involves only "hypomania," which fits the description of many peoples' "good week." The disorder doesn't display the novel sodium ion channel behaviors of Bipolar I; the genetics of Bipolar II are confounded by the fact that until recently no one had been diagnosed with it because some psychologist had just made it up, then attaching hypomanic affects and behaviors exhibited by the normal, or at worst the depressed, to the Big Bad Kind of Craziness that we used to call manic depression.

Bipolar II patients need psychiatric care for the crushing, underlying major depression that is the reason most of them went to a psychiatrist in the first place.

I'm bipolar I, of course, for the record
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