Psychopharmacogenetics

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

In light of the emerging evidence for genetic vulnerability to adverse drug reactions, this article attempts to elucidate the natural history of medication-induced movement disorders from a psychopharmacogenetic perspective. Studies of the risk factors, neurobiology, and pharmacogenetics are reviewed concurrently. The relevant variables associated with 10 genetically mediated movement disorders are tabulated and compared with those of medication-induced movement disorders without a clear-cut genetic basis. As a result of this integrated analysis, it is evident that there is an intimate genetic and pathophysiological link between neuropsychiatric movement disorders of diverse origins...

Comparative studies of behavioral responses to centrally acting drugs in inbred strains of mice which show differences in brain neurotransmitter activity represent a major strategy in the investigation of the neurochemical bases underlying behavioural expression. Moreover, these studies represent a preliminary stage in behavioral genetic research since they allow quantitative scales to be established and suggest correlations to be tested in recombinant inbred strains. The present review evaluates results obtained in mice of the C57BL/6 (C57) and DBA/2 (DBA) inbred strains which have been used for studies of the behavioral pharmacology of dopamine (DA) and investigated for the functional and anatomical characteristics of their brain DA systems...

Interethnic child and adolescent psychopharmacology research is essentially unstudied. Recently there have been reports of interethnic differences in psychopharmacology research on adults. This article addresses the need to focus research on psychopharmacogenetics, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and issues of efficacy and effectiveness in child and adolescent populations of different ethnic groups.

Experimental results are reviewed which indicate that memory storage can be altered by a number of post-training treatments that affect different hormones and neurotransmitters. Moreover, evidence was reported which suggests that the action of treatments effective on memory processes involves interactions among different systems, consistently with the complexity of brain systems. In the last decade, inbred strains have been exploited to investigate the role of neurotransmitter and hormone systems in learning and memory, leading to behavioural and neurochemical correlations based on strain differences that provide unique information on the biological systems underlying behaviour...

This article attempts to elucidate the theory and practice of psychopharmacogenetics. Eight working models were identified and characterized with a distinct view of risk factors in the host, the pathophysiology of disease, and the strategies for optimum therapy. The biochemical culprits related to adverse drug reaction in each case can be used to identify a risk and thus contribute to prevention research. Since the phenomenology of these uncommon conditions covers a broad spectrum of neuropsychiatric manifestations, the insights they generated might presage a better understanding of the natural history of a wider range of mental disorders associated with genetic vulnerability...

Research on the importance of genetic and environmental risk factors (multifactorial) in the etiology of mental disorders and substance use disorders (alcoholism) is now growing rapidly. Biological and psychological studies in this field should include basic concepts of medical genetics and take heterogeneity (multidimensionality) of mental disorders into account. One of the best means to cope with heterogeneity is to redefine the diagnostic phenotype at different levels: biochemical, behavioral, familial. Data are presented where the introduction of different quantitative definitions of the phenotype and their analysis by multivariate technics are used for better understanding of alcoholic disorders...

1. The evidence is substantial that primary affective disorders are genetically inherited. 2. Using pharmacological probes or strategies, biological markers of the gene(s) should be able to be ascertained or induced during remission of illness. 3. Genetic marker criteria are defined and are applied to the scanty existing data. 4. It is concluded that these strategies have yet to yield a clear marker of primary affective disorder.

A psychopharmacogenetic strategy was used to investigate a genetic heterogeneity model of schizophrenia. This model consisted of various genetic subtypes represented by patients classified hypothetically according to the types and genealogical (Mendelian) patterns of illnesses in first-degree relatives. The effect of neuroleptics on these subtypes (drug x genetic subtype interactions) were tested for evidence of post-treatment responses which discriminated between them. The findings revealed that schizophrenics who had depressed relatives tended to exhibit (1) depression and more severe pseudoparkinsonism irrespective of types of neuroleptics, and (2) greater remission of paranoid-hostility symptoms when treated with neuroleptics of the aliphatic-piperadine type...

The effects of chlordiazepoxide (CDP) on feeding performance and on rearing activity were investigated using a food preference test in three Roman strains: Roman Low Avoidance (RLA), Roman Control Avoidance (RCA), and Roman High Avoidance (RHA). The aims of the study were to assess the responses of the three strains to a free choice of familiar and novel foods following a period of food deprivation, and to answer the important psychopharmacogenetic question of whether or not the strains would display differential responsivity to CDP challenges...

Unlike simple Mendelian characteristics, individual differences in complex quantitative phenotypes studied in psychopharmacology are generally distributed continuously and are likely to be influenced by many genes. Recombinant inbred (RI) strains are valuable not only for their traditional use of detecting major gene segregation and linkage but also for identifying associations between quantitative traits and quantitative trait loci (QTL) that account for relatively small amounts of variation in phenotypes as well as loci that account for greater amounts of variation...

The study of genes, drugs, and behavior in three male adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) revealed a clinical profile that raises questions about the indications for neuroleptic and appetite-suppressing medications in this condition. Evidence of the inadvisability of neuroleptic medication and of the pathophysiology of PWS has led to a remarkable control of violent outbursts and hyperphagia by carbamazepine in one patient afflicted with both PWS and Klinefelter's syndrome. Testosterone and behavioral therapy proved to be useful in the management of two patients...

1. Individual response to drugs is to a great extent influenced by hereditary factors. 2. The interaction between genetic and environmental factors affecting drug metabolism in man is of crucial importance to the understanding of therapeutic response in psychopharmacology. This proposition is illustrated for various psychotropic drugs such as the monoamineoxydase inhibitors (MAOI), tricyclic drugs and lithium salts as well as for enzymes involved in the synthesis and degradation of biogenic amines. 3. New perspectives in pharmacogenetics and their relevance to psychopharmacology are discussed...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.