Revisiting unipolar mania: an entity forgotten?

Unipolar mania, also referred as recurrent mania or unipolar recurrent mania, is an entity which position in bipolar disorder remains controversial. Notwithstanding, there are a considerable number of bipolar patients in clinical practice presenting only with recurrent episodes of mania or hypomania, without episodes of depression. Additionally, the existence of certain clinical, demographic and treatment peculiarities suggests that the categorization of unipolar mania as a subtype of bipolar disorder still to be useful for early detection and maximization of treatment response. In this review, the authors intend to provide a literature revision of unipolar mania throughout history, epidemiology and clinical features.