[The importance of the staging model in bipolar disorder].

The staging model is widely used in medicine to determine progression, prognosis, and therapeutic decisions. The application of the staging model in psychiatry is currently limited due to etiological and clinical heterogenity. Accor ding to our current knowledge, bipolar disorder is a progressive psychiatric disease with different stages, which can be differentiated based on the course, clinical symptoms and responsiveness to therapy. In our review, we describe the most important clinical staging models of bipolar disorder and the neuroprogressive processes which are underlying them.