I also spoke with my psych NP today. He used to work in the private psych setting, but now he works at the non-profit I use. He answered many of the questions that I originally posted here in a few minutes and the answers were based on his experiences.

He knew that cutting edge advances and the methods used by a neuropsychiatrist are seldom used in what he termed "mainstream" psychiatry. Advances like genetic testing (the saliva swab) are still in the developmental stages. Medical imaging and electroencephalography are not really for treating bipolar but called for in cases where brain damage is suspected; in which case a patient is referred to a neurologist.

Our conversation did get around to neuropsychiatrist. These doctors are like a psychiatrist and neurologist in one. They might consider medical imaging. However in the end they may only be able to concern themselves with the bipolar patient's symptoms, feedback, and clinical observations. However, at this point in our talk he mentioned the TSM a new cranial implant but it is for depression -- a little talk about differences in unipolar and bipolar mood disorders followed.

I still need to see the neuropsychiatrist and ask about trends in diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder. Even though it may seem to others in this thread that bipolar disorder does not yet have substantive diagnosis and treatment -- and if it did it would be big news and printed in medical journals -- they wouldn't know because they don't consult medical journals with questions about bipolar disorder and microbiology. They don't care about that. If they did *they* would have shared experiences not just common place conjecture.