Antipsychotic: Difference between revisions

'''Antipsychotics''' (also known as '''neuroleptics''' or '''major tranquilizers''')<ref>{{cite book|last=Cubeddu|first=Richard Finkel, Michelle A. Clark, Luigi X.|title=Pharmacology|year=2009|publisher=Lippincott Williams & Wilkins|location=Philadelphia|isbn=9780781771559|page=151|url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=Q4hG2gRhy7oC&pg=PA151|edition=4th}}</ref> are a class of psychiatric medication primarily used to manage [[psychosis]] (including [[delusion]]s, [[hallucinations]], or disordered thought), in particular in [[schizophrenia]] and bipolar disorder]]. The word '''neuroleptic''' originates from the Greek word "''νεῦρον''", ''neuron'' ("nerve") and ''lepsis'' ("seizure" or "fit").<ref>{{cite book|title=Moby's Medical ctionary|publisher=Elsevier}}</ref>

'''First-generation antipsychotics''', known as [[typical antipsychotics]], were discovered in the 1950s. Most '''second-generation drugs''', known as [[atypical antipsychotics, have been developed more recently, although the first atypical antipsychotic, [[clozapine]], was discovered in the 1950s and introduced clinically in the 1970s. Both generations of medication tend to block receptors in the brain's [[dopamine pathway]]s, but atypicals tend to act on [[serotonin]] receptors as well.

Notable and relatively common adverse effects of antipsychotics include [[extrapyramidal symptoms]] (which involve motor control) and [[hyperprolactinaemia]] primarily in typicals and weight gain and metabolic abnormalities mostly in atypicals.<ref name = "SCZ">{{cite web | url = http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/288259-overview | title = Schizophrenia | author = Frankenburg FR, Dunayevich E, Albucher RC, Talavera F | publisher = emedicine.medscape.com | accessdate = 2013-10-02 }}</ref>

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