Abstract: Compounds for use as lithium-like therapeutic agents and methods and reagents for identifying same as well as compounds for treating lithium-induced toxicity and methods and reagents for identifying same. The compounds modulate the activity of enzymes within pathways upon which lithium has been discovered to act. Also disclosed herein are transgenic animals that serve as models of lithium-induced toxicity and methods of using the transgenic animals for identifying compounds that ameliorate lithium toxicity. Furthermore, disclosed herein are methods of modeling target sites for lithium.