Sexual function antipsychotic effects

Sexual Side Effects and Hyperprolactinemia. Clinical evaluation of the sexual function effects of antipsychotic agents are fraught with methodological difficulties including reduced sexual performance in unmedicated schizophrenics. The few well-con-trolled studies that have appeared have involved male subjects (74,75). 

Some of the effects of antipsychotic drugs on sexual function have been attributed by Aizenberg et al. to increased prolactin secretion by the anterior pituitary (74, 76), other effects may result from their specific autonomic actions (75). Prolactin secretion by the anterior pituitary is tonically inhibited by the hypothalamus, with dopamine acting as the prolactin release-inhibiting factor (PIF). Thus, conventional neuroleptics cause dose-related increases in serum prolactin levels (hy-... 

Other side effects characteristic of most neuroleptic-antipsychotic drugs include autonomic effects such as postural hypotension and impaired sexual function. Increased plasma prolactin represents an endocrine effect. 

Hanssens L, L ltalien G, Loze JY, Marcus RN, Pans M, Kerselaers W. The effect of antipsychotic medication on sexual function and serum prolactin levels in community-treated schizophrenic patients results from the Schizophrenia Trial of Aripiprazole (STAR) study (NCT00237913). BMC Psychiatry 2008 8 95. 

Knegtering H, van der Moolen AEGM, Castelein S, et al. What are the effects of antipsychotics on sexual dysfunctions and endocrine functioning Psychoneuroendocrinology 2003 28(Suppl 2) 109—123. 

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