Pharmacologyonline 2: 971-1020 (2009) Newsletter Gabriella Galizia THE TREATMENT OF THE SCHIZOPHRENIA: AN OVERVIEW Gabriella Galizia School of Pharmacy,University of Salerno, Italy e-mail:
[email protected] Summary The schizophrenia is a kind of psychiatric disease, characterized by a course longer than six months (usually chronic or relapsing), by the persistence of symptoms of alteration of mind, behaviour and emotion, with such a seriousness to limitate the normal activity of a person. The terms antipsychotic and neuroleptic define a group of medicine principally used to treat schizophrenia, but they are also efficacious for other psychosis and in states of psychic agitation. The antipsychotics are divided into two classes: classic or typical and atypical. The paliperidone, the major metabolite of risperidone, shares with the native drug the characteristics of receptoral bond and of antagonism of serotonin (5HT2A) and dopamine (D2). It's available in a prolonged release formulation and it allows the administration once daily. Besides, the paliperidone has a pharmacological action independent of CYT P450 and in such way a lot of due pharmacological interactions would be avoided to interference with the activity of the CYP2D6, that is known to have involved in the metabolism of the 25% of the drugs of commune therapeutic employment. Introduction The schizophrenia has been a very hard disease to investigate by the research. This is not surprising because it involves the most mysterious aspects of human mind, as emotions and cognitive processes. According to scientific conventions, the schizophrenia is a kind of psychiatric disease, characterized by a course longer than six months (usually chronic or relapsing), by the persistence of symptoms of alteration of mind, behaviour and emotion, with such a seriousness to limitate the normal activity of a person.