No profit it in? I thought the pharmaceutical industry had a handle on it. Hmm.This is an interesting part of the intro: Lithium is as puzzling as it is potent. It was the first drug used to treat mental illness, and more than 50 years later, it is still one of the most widely used psychiatric medications. But the doctors who prescribe lithium to their patients still do not know how it works or even why it works. It is the most mysterious drug in psychiatry, says De-Maw Chuang, a biologist at the National Institute of Mental Health. Its so small, but it is so powerful.Unlike other psychoactive chemicalslarge, complex molecules like Prozac (fluoxetine) or Abilify (aripiprazole)lithium is extremely simple. It is an element, the lightest of the metals, and its chemical properties are similar to those of the sodium in table salt. Nonetheless, researchers have recently found that lithium could be something close to a psychiatric wonder drug. It has two remarkable powers in the brains of mentally ill patients: protecting neurons from damage and death and alleviating existing damage by spurring new nerve cell growth. Far beyond its current application as a mood stabilizer, lithium could be helpful in treating or preventing Alzheimers disease, schizophrenia, stroke, glaucoma, Lou Gehrigs disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), and Huntingtons diseasean impressive tally that earned it the nickname the aspirin of the brain in the journal Nature.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------