Psychotropic drug

About: Psychotropic drug is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2309 publications have been published within this topic receiving 54070 citations.

Psychopharmacological strategies in the search for cognition enhancers.

Abstract: In order to discover and develop drugs to treat cognitive decline, animal tests are needed which will predict clinical activity. The process of developing such animal models does not differ, in principle, from the approaches used in other areas of psychotropic drug research. One research approach involves attempts to create models homologous with the disorder to be treated. This requires a thorough analysis of the clinical problem and an attempt to reproduce the biological and behavioral aspects of the disorder in animals. Recent studies of the effects of certain brain lesions on learning in monkeys or rats as models of Alzheimer's disease may go some way towards developing an animal model for this disorder. However, it is arguable whether this approach to "modelling" has ever had much success in psychopharmacology. A more pragmatic strategy involves the development of what are sometimes called emperical models, according to which any biological and behavioral test can be used if it provides a reasonable prediction of activity in the clinic. For example, the much used passive avoidance test in rodents does not need to model human cognition if it accurately predicts clinical activity. The extent to which this approach can be used successfully for evaluating cognition-enhancing drugs is discussed in view of the many drugs already marketed as cognition enhancers.

Criteria of a pharmacologic withdrawal syndrome.

Abstract: To the Editor.— Hughes and Hatsukami 1 add significant findings to our knowledge of the syndrome that ensues when smokers stop smoking. As they suggest, this is very likely a nicotine withdrawal syndrome. Their analysis of alternative hypotheses, however, ignores an important possibility. If it is assumed that a person using a psychotropic drug for a long time was normal without that drug, then a behavioral disorder when the drug is stopped may well be a classic pharmacologic withdrawal syndrome. In reality, however, the assumption cannot be tested because addicts do not come to our attention before their addiction. An alternative hypothesis is that the long-term drug user is self-medicating a behavioral disorder that antedates the drug exposure. In that case, stopping the drug will expose a previously masked set of symptoms. Here we would not be dealing with a classic withdrawal syndrome at all. Either mechanism would produce all

Quantitative EEG Brain Mapping In Psychotropic Drug Development, Drug Treatment Selection, and Monitoring.

Abstract: Quantification of standard electroencephalogram (EEG) by digital computers [computer-analyzed EEG (CEEG)] has transformed the subjective analog EEG into an objective scientific method. Until a few years ago, CEEG was only used to assist in the development of psychotropic drugs by means of the quantitative pharmaco EEG. Thanks to the computer revolution and the accompanying reductions in cost of quantification, CEEG can now also be applied in psychiatric practice. CEEG can assist the physician in confirming clinical diagnoses, selecting psychotropic drugs for treatment, and drug treatment monitoring. Advancements in communications technology allow physicians and researchers to reduce the costs of acquiring a high-technology CEEG brain mapping system by utilizing the more economical telephonic services.