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New drugs for the treatment of schizophrenic patients
Author(s) -
Fleischhacker W.W.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1995.tb05941.x
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , dopamine , medicine , dopamine receptor , psychosis , dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia , psychology , dopamine receptor d3 , psychiatry , pharmacology , neuroscience
Conventional neuroleptics are widely accepted as being effective against the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, but do not benefit all patients. Furthermore, they are relatively ineffective against negative symptoms and cognitive disorders, and most have unpleasant side effcct profiles. New strategies for treating schizophrenia include the development of dopamine antagonists with high selectivity for different subtypes of dopamine receptors, dopamine partial agonists, antagonists at different serotonin (5–hydroxytryptamine; 5–HT) receptor subtypes, drugs with mixed pharmacological profiles and drugs which modify transmission via amino acids or peptides in the brain. The prospect is that some of these strategies will lead to the introduction of new drugs and that some of these will become the standards against which future drugs will be compared. The search for new drugs and their use in clinical practice will also lead to developments in our knowledge and understanding of schizophrenia.