Special Issue "Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases and Antipsychotic Treatment"

Dear Colleagues,

For several decades, antipsychotic drugs have been administered to patients with schizophrenia and affective diseases. These drugs improve psychotic and affective symptoms, and maintenance therapy is often necessary. Antipsychotic drugs are not a causal pharmacotherapy but a palliative pharmacological treatment. In the treatment of schizophrenic patients, antipsychotic drugs, above all, ameliorate positive schizophrenic symptoms and, less effectively, negative schizophrenic symptoms; however, they often cause extrapyramidal symptoms. One negative aspect of the treatment with antipsychotic drugs is that they deteriorate cognitive symptoms. Most antipsychotic drugs block specific dopaminergic and serotonergic receptors. In addition, second-generation antipsychotic drugs often increase blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol and they have adverse cardiac effects.

In the development of newer antipsychotic drugs, the following questions should be answered:

Is the D2 dopaminergic receptor blockade always necessary to achieve a strong antipsychotic effect?

Can interactions with receptors other than the dopaminergic and serotonergic receptors have an antipsychotic effect?

Can antipsychotic drugs also improve cognitive functions and not deteriorate them?

Can antipsychotic drugs have fewer metabolic and cardiac adverse effects?

Can the occurrence of extrapyramidal symptoms be reduced by administering newer antipsychotic drugs?

Is there a method to choose the patients who can profit from being treated with a specific antipsychotic drug?

Have the newer antipsychotic drugs a sufficient therapeutic effect?

This Special Issue aims to contribute to answering the questions of whether newer antipsychotic drugs have a secure therapeutic effect, whether they better treat negative schizophrenic symptoms, whether they improve cognitive functions, whether they less often cause extrapyramidal symptoms, and whether they have fewer adverse effects upon metabolism and the heart function. Furthermore, the question will be answered whether patients can be chosen who profit from pharmacotherapy with a specific antipsychotic drug.

Prof. Dr. Felix Martin Werner
Prof. Dr. Rafael Coveñas Rodríguez
Guest Editors

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• antipsychotic drug
• extrapyramidal symptoms
• D2 receptor
• partial agonistic effect
• positive schizophrenic symptom