From antipsychotic to anti-schizophrenia drugs: role of animal models

Current drugs for treating schizophrenia are mostly variations on a theme that was started over 50 years ago. Sadly, clinical efficacy has not improved substantially over the years. We argue that both clinical and preclinical researchers have focused too much on psychosis, which is only one of the hallmarks of schizophrenia. This narrow focus has hampered the development of relevant animal models and human experimental medicine paradigms. Other fields in psychiatry, most notably in the realms of addiction and anxiety, have prospered from results obtained in parallel studies using animal models and experimental human studies. Lessons to be learned from those models and recent genetic and cognitive insights in schizophrenia can be utilized to develop better animal and human models and, potentially, novel treatment strategies.