A study that peered into live mouse brains suggests for nearly 70 years we’ve been targeting the wrong neurons in our design of antipsychotic drugs.
Untangling the vast web of brain cells and determining how drugs work upon them is a tough task. Using a miniature microscope and fluorescent tags, a team of researchers led by Northwestern University neuroscientist Seongsik Yun discovered that effective antipsychotic drugs cling to a different type of brain cell than scientists originally thought.
Just like research suggesting depression might not be a chemical imbalance in serotonin levels, our understanding of schizophrenia treatments may need a rethink if widely-used antipsychotics are targeting different neurons than expected.
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