Antipsychotics are medicines used for alleviating hallucination, delusion, and excitement. The prototype of antipsychotics is chlorpromazine and its effect is due to antagonistic action for the dopamine D2 receptor and many antipsychotics have been developed under this mechanism and prescribed for schizophrenia. After the re-awareness of clozapine used for untreatable schizophrenia by Kane et al.in 1988,new type of antipsychotics called second generation antipsychotics,have been developed and six other new second generation antipsychotics have been used in Japan. Since the second generation antipsychotics have little side effects such as extrapyramidal signs, there are many chances to use antipsychotics besides schizophrenia. However, there is no unambiguous technical information about how to choose an antipsychotic suitable for one patient. In this review, the up-date information useful for clinical treatment with antipsychotics through individual variation will be indicated.
Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica
112: 939-944, 2010
<Keywords:antipsychotics, individual variation, cytochrome P450, MDR1, dopamine receptor>