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Objective: Substance abuse is extremely common in patients with bipolar disorders, although minimal data are available on the treatment of this important clinical population. Aripiprazole is an atypical antipsychotic that is approved for the treatment of mania and that has a novel mechanism of action, acting as a dopamine-2 receptor partial agonist, thereby increasing dopamine release in some parts of the brain and decreasing dopamine release in other brain regions. Dopamine release is implicated in substance use, and both dopaminergic agonists and antagonists have been examined for the treatment of substance abuse. To our knowledge, dopamine receptor partial agonists have not been investigated for treatment of substance abuse in humans. Method: Twenty antipsychotic-treated patients with bipolar or schizoaffective disorder and current substance abuse were switched to open-label aripiprazole using an …