Chlorpromazine
A drug that eases the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenia. Synthesised in France in 1951 and tried as an aid to anaesthesia, it entered psychiatry in 1952.
The French surgeon Henri Laborit, looking for a way to prevent the sudden collapse that could follow surgery, noticed that patients given this drug stayed conscious but lost interest in their surroundings. In 1952 Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker in Paris used it on psychiatric patients and reported that it eased not only agitation but also hallucinations and delusions[1]. The idea that it blocks dopamine receptors in the brain later gave rise to the dopamine hypothesis[1].
A 2014 review of 55 trials against placebo concluded that it improves symptoms overall and reduces relapse. The same review records clear side effects, including strong sedation, tremor and stiffness, and weight gain[2].
Related terms
- SchizophreniaAn illness in which the connections between mental functions such as thought and feeling break down. The word was coined in 1908 by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler.
- Dopamine hypothesisThe explanation that in schizophrenia the signal carried by the brain chemical dopamine is too strong. It was built backwards from how effective drugs act, not from the illness itself.
- PlaceboA tablet or similar that looks like the real drug but contains no active ingredient. Comparing a drug against it shows whether the drug really works.
- LobotomyAn operation that cuts the connections between the frontal lobes and the rest of the brain. Begun by Egas Moniz of Portugal in 1935 as "leucotomy", it spread in the United States under the name "lobotomy".
Sources
- T. A. Ban, “Fifty years chlorpromazine: a historical perspective,” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 3(4), 495–500 (2007).
- C. E. Adams, G. A. Awad, J. Rathbone, B. Thornley, K. Soares-Weiser, “Chlorpromazine versus placebo for schizophrenia,” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 1, CD000284 (2014).