Imagine

Review of Sam Harris. The Ends of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Extrapyramidal Side Effects of Antipsychotic Treatment: Scope of Problem and Impact on Outcome

clinicians worked with antipsychotic drugs (conventional or typical) that almost invariably caused extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) at clinically effective doses. This led to the false impression that all antipsychotics were the same, and that EPS were an unavoidable consequence of effective antipsychotic therapy. EPS adversely impact several aspects of antipsychotic efficacy and tolerability, thereby worsening outcome of afflicted individuals. EPS reduce beneficial effects of antipsychotic treatment on the negative, cognitive, and mood symptom domains, while increasing the risk of tardive dyskinesia and reducing compliance. By definition, the newer generation of “atypical” antipsychotic agents are significantly better than conventional agents with regard to EPS (i.e., they are clinically effective at doses at which they do not cause EPS). Pharmacologically, this difference is expressed in the greater degree of separation between respective dose response curves for antipsychotic and EPS effects observed for “atypical” in contrast to conventional agents. Clinically, this EPS advantage of atypical antipsychotics translates into several important benefits, including better negative symptom efficacy, less dysphoria, less impaired cognition, a lower risk of TD, and better overall outcome.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44008/1/10442_2004_Article_377854.pd

Psychiatry

This sequence introduces students to clinical psychiatry. The sequence focuses on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders, with those elements of neurobiology, behavioral science, and pharmacology that are essential to the understanding of these disorders.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120534/1/medical_m2_curriculum_psychiatry-May10.zi