Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 13, Issue 8, 2012

The concept that the efficacy of all antipsychotic drugs (APDs) can be explained by their action on dopamine (DA) D2 receptors is most challenged by drugs such as clozapine which target serotonin (5-HT)2A receptors as an essential component of their efficacy and tolerability. The 5-HT2A receptor, along with 5-HT1A, 5-HT 2C, 5-HT 6 or 5-HT 7 receptors, all of which are components of the mechanism of action of clozapine, Read More

Cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia that substantially accounts for poor functional outcomes associated with this disease in areas such as work, independent living and social relationships. Until recently, drug development in schizophrenia has focused on developing compounds that mainly target the positive psychotic symptoms of the illness. Although current antipsychotic drugs treat psychosis in sch Read More

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder associated with subtle, but replicable cerebral volume loss mostly prevalent in frontal and temporal brain regions. Post-mortem studies of the hippocampus point to a reduction of the neuropil constituting mainly of synapses associated with changes of molecules mediating plastic responses of neurons during development and learning. Derived from animal studies interventions to enhance neuropl Read More

The exact pathophysiological mechanism leading to dopaminergic dysfunction in schizophrenia is still unclear, but inflammation is postulated to be a key player: a dysfunction in the activation of the type 1 immune response seems to be associated with decreased activity of the key enzyme in tryptophan/kynurenine metabolism, indoleamine 2,3- dioxygenase (IDO), resulting in increased production of kynurenic acid - a N-methyl Read More

Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disease. The mode of inheritance is complex and non-Mendelian with a high heritability of ca. 65-80%. Given this complexity, until most recently it was notoriously difficult to identify disease genes. Due to new technologies the last few years have brought an explosion of interest in human genetics of complex diseases. The knowledge resulting from the availability of the complete sequence of Read More

Neurobiological correlates of various treatment approaches (e.g. psychopharmacology, cognitive behavioural therapy) have become an important issue in recent neuroimaging studies. In schizophrenia, dysfunctions especially in frontal and parietal brain regions as well as the ventral striatum have been demonstrated in numerous studies. The review includes functional MRI studies about neurobiological correlates of treatment Read More