As already mentioned, the present approach in psychopharmacology is essentially syndromal. For example, antidepressants are drugs aimed at treating depressive symptoms, while antipsychotics are aimed at treating schizophrenic symptoms. Similarly, antihypertensive
drugs are prescribed in internal medicine to treat high blood pressure. However, a major difference is that internists know better than psychiatrists what drugs do at the pharmacological level. Internists know that they either substitute for a missing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical compound (eg, insulin), attack an infectious agent (ie, antibiotics), or “cheat the body” (eg, induce a dysfunction in normal physiology in order to influence a symptom). For example, drugs used for cardiac insufficiency decrease blood volume, increase the muscular Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical check details capacity of the myocardium, modify vascular resistance, lower heart rate, etc. Internists have a clear idea of what occurs when a
patient develops cardiac insufficiency. They know that, a diuretic is a regulator of electrolyte homeostasis and so do not call it an “antidyspnea” drug just, because it controls the respiratory difficulties of patients with cardiac insufficiency. In psychopharmacology, direct. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical links are often made from receptor or transporter to symptoms, without an intermediate analysis of which physiological functions are modified by the medication. Recent discoveries in the field of antidepressant agents show that extrapolation from the action of SSRIs action on the 5HTT to improvement, in mood is a. gross Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical simplification. Indeed, several antidepressants also Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical decrease the expression of corticotropin-relcasin hormone (CRH) in the hypothalamus and increase the expression of glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus2; in addition, they increase the expression of gonadorelin (LHRH),3 and of brain-derived neurotrophic factor
(BDNF).4 These pharmacological effects might explain, in part, the clinical effects, through an influence on several brain functions. Psychiatric disorders Diagnoses using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-TV) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision because (ICD-10) manuals are based on qualitative classification: a particular disorder is present if the required number of symptoms is found. Only a few mechanisms have been established for these disorders. The problems of a descriptive classification have long been recognized, as illustrated by the following citation, translated from a French book by Nathan5: “Until a classification can be based on etiology and pathogenesis, it does exist but is theoretically and practically sterile.
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