Psychiatric disorders, treatment with antagonists

The part played by endogenous opioid systems in the regulation of these various physiological and behavioral functions has led to the experimental application of opiate antagonists in psychiatric disorders. This chapter focuses on autism and self-injury, which are two potential indications for opiate antagonists in pediatric populations. In adults, treatment with opiate antagonists has shown to be useful in the relapse prevention of alcoholism as part of a comprehensive treatment approach (Anton et ah, 1999, 2001). 

HT2-type receptors have been a focus for investigations into its putative clinical importance for treatment of psychiatric disorders. h-HTg-type receptors have been implicated in several disorders like anxiety, depression and psychosis. As we are presently in the dark with respect to the mechanisms underlying the development of these disorders, future pharmacotherapy largely aims at alleviating symptoms. To that end various compounds, which have antagonistic properties on S-HTj-type receptors, are currently tested in clinical studies. 

Anxiety and depression are psychiatric disorders that constitute a major health problem throughout world. While numerous marketed treatments exist for both disorders, there remains a continuing need for drugs with increased efficacy and/or reduced side-effect profiles [164,165]. CRF (1) receptor antagonists have been proposed as novel pharmacological treatments for depression, anxiety and stress disorders [164-166]. 

Based on the erroneous notion that mental illness and seizure disorders were antagonistic, psychiatrists induced seizures as a treatment for depression and other psychiatric problems. Convulsive therapy was first described clinically by Ladislas J. Meduna. In 1934, he injected camphor liniment to induce seizures in patients with schizophrenia, some of whom actually improved. His technique was recognized immediately for its therapeutic value and adopted worldwide within a few years of its introduction. Other chemicals, such as metronidazole (Metrozol), were administered under the mistaken hehef that such treatments would consistently reheve the symptoms of mental illness. Pharmaco-convulsive therapy frightened patients and was fiuught with shortcomings, such as the unreliable induction of seizures. 

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