General effect of psychotropic drugs

Overall, there is a very wide range of different psychotropic drugs, which makes it very difficult to find a general mode of action. However, it can be stated that all psychotropic drugs act on the brain in different ways. Here they ensure that different messenger substances (neurotransmitters) are either increased or decreased in the brain.

In this way, different information is passed on in the brain or it is suppressed, depending on the desired effect. Other psychotropic drugs block various receptors in the brain so that no information can be passed on, others stimulate a receptor so that the flow of information occurs. The effect of psychotropic drugs is therefore very diverse and very complex, which is why this may also apply to their side effects.

Psychotropic drugs used to treat depression are also known as antidepressants. These drugs are intended to lighten the patient’s mood and prevent negative thoughts from taking over. Antidepressants are not only used to treat depression, but are psychotropic drugs that can also be used for panic attacks, general anxiety disorders, eating disorders such as anorexia, chronic pain, sleep disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorders.Thus the field of application of these psychotropic drugs is very broad.

The drug classes are also very variable. In total, there are many psychotropic drugs that can be used as antidepressants. These include the group of tricyclic antidepressants, the selective reuptake inhibitors such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors or serotonin noradrenalin reuptake inhibitors, the monoaminooxidase inhibitors, the serotonin and melatonin agonists as well as various herbal remedies or drugs for acute treatment.

All in all, there are many different psychotropic drugs which can be used as antidepressants for various disorders and which sometimes differ greatly in their mode of action. Due to these different modes of action, however, it is possible to find the right psychotropic drug for almost every patient. There are various psychotropic drugs that can be used for anxiety disorders and sometimes also for sleep disorders.

These so-called tranquilizers ensure that the patient feels less anxiety, i.e. they have an anxiolytic effect. This is why these psychotropic drugs are sometimes also called anxiolytics. In addition to this anxiety-relieving effect, they also ensure that the patient becomes more relaxed (sedating).

The most commonly used anxiolytics are the so-called benzodiazepines. These psychotropic drugs are drugs that greatly relieve anxiety, promote sleep and help the patient to relax. However, since these psychotropic drugs can sometimes be highly addictive, they should only be taken under strict medical supervision.

Nevertheless, benzodiazepines offer the best effect, so in some cases their use is essential, despite their potential for dependence. However, there are other psychotropic drugs which can also be anxiety-relieving. These include non-benzodiazepine tranquilizers, some antidepressants and some neuroleptics.

In some cases, beta-blockers can also be administered. These are not psychotropic drugs but “normal” drugs that are also used in patients with heart disease. There are several different psychotropic drugs that can be used for psychoses.

This group of drugs is also called neuroleptics. These neuroleptics or antipsychotics are psychotropic drugs which are intended to ensure that the patient does not forget what reality is and that he does not lose sight of this reality. In addition to this effect, neuroleptics also have a sedative effect, which makes the patient calmer and therefore better able to differentiate between reality and fiction.

Because of these effects, these psychotropic drugs can be used to prevent hallucinations or to avoid delusions. Therefore, neuroleptics are particularly commonly used psychotropic drugs in patients with schizophrenia or mania. However, due to their sometimes strong sedative effect, neuroleptics are being used more and more widely.

Meanwhile, these psychotropic drugs are also prescribed to patients with dementia, Tourette’s syndrome, depression, children with ADHD, autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nowadays the atypical neuroleptics are mostly used for this purpose, as they have fewer side effects than the typical or classic neuroleptics, which can cause the patient to develop side effects similar to Parkinson’s symptoms. In general, these psychotropic drugs are medications that should be given under strict medical supervision and close monitoring as the side effects can be very high.

Nevertheless, the psychotropic drugs can help the patient to lead a normal life without hallucinations and delusions. Thus, a precise risk-benefit analysis is always crucial. There are several different psychotropic drugs that can be used for sleep disorders.

These psychotropic drugs are prescribed to patients who either have great difficulty in falling asleep or to patients who wake up at night and cannot sleep through the night at all. These psychotropic drugs are called sleeping pills (hypnotic). In addition to everyday use, these psychotropic drugs are sometimes also used to make the patient sleep during the operation.

In this case they are called narcotics because they are very strong sleeping pills. The most commonly used psychotropic drugs are the benzodiazepines, although there is sometimes a great potential for dependence. There are also the so-called non-benzodiazepine agonists and the barbiturates.In addition to these psychotropic drugs, there are also some herbal sleeping pills as well as anti-allergy drugs such as antihistamines.

Generally a patient should always try to get first with vegetable sleep means or with the help of a sleep analysis in the sleep laboratory its sleep behavior into the grasp to get there it otherwise to a habituation to the sleep means to come can, which leads then again to the fact that the sleep behavior of the patient worsens again. Until today, dementia is a badly researched disease for which there is no cure yet. Nevertheless, there are various psychotropic drugs that can slow down the course of dementia and thus help to give the patient a few years of life.

A psychotropic drug used for dementia is called an anti-dementia drug. A distinction is made between the so-called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and NMDA antagonists. Both drugs ensure that more of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine remains in the active zone (synaptic cleft) of the nerve cells.

As a result, an increased amount of acetylcholine remains for a longer period of time, which normally decreases further in dementia patients. As a result of this process, the nerve cells can be excited more often and the patient remembers more things longer than without the medication. However, these psychotropic drugs cannot influence the course of the disease and they cannot cure a patient of dementia.

For some patients it may be helpful to receive a mood stabilizer (phase prophylaxis) to avoid a recurring mental illness. These psychotropic drugs are medications that are mainly used in patients with recurrent (recurrent) depression or in patients with a bipolar disorder. The mood stabilizer helps the patient to consolidate a basic mood and not to lapse repeatedly into severe depression or severe manic phases.

The psychotropic drugs are lithium salts, carbamazepine, valproic acid and lamotrigine. There are various psychotropic drugs that are used to get the patient going again, i.e. to stimulate him. Colloquially, these psychotropic drugs are also called Upper because they make sure that the patient is in a good mood and active again (up) and not in a bad mood and tired (down).

These kinds of psychotropic drugs are often used as drugs, for example to stay awake longer at work or to be able to party all night without any problems. These include amphetamine derivatives, cathinones, entactogens, as well as xanthines and piperazine derivatives. As these psychotropic drugs sometimes have a very high potential for dependence, they should only be taken under strict medical supervision.

If a patient suffers from an addictive disorder, such as alcohol addiction, it is often difficult to get the patient off the drug. To support the withdrawal there is the psychotropic drug Clomethiazol. However, this psychotropic drug is only used when a patient is in hospital for inpatient withdrawal and the alcohol-related withdrawal symptoms are to be avoided.

If, on the other hand, the alcohol withdrawal takes place in a rehabilitation clinic or as an outpatient at home, the patient does not need to take any psychotropic drugs. Patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease need psychotropic drugs to minimize the symptoms of the disease and to be able to lead a normal life. However, it is important to know that although the symptoms of the disease can be treated, a cure is not possible.

To alleviate the symptoms, however, there are various psychotropic drugs, such as L-DOPA, dopamine agonists, COMT inhibitors or MAO-B inhibitors. All these psychotropic drugs are supposed to cause the patient to have more and above all more constant dopamine in his blood and especially in the brain cells. Since Parkinson’s disease causes low and above all very fluctuating dopamine levels and this leads to the typical symptoms, the psychotropic drugs, due to their stabilizing effect on dopamine, can lead to the patient having fewer symptoms such as tremors or the like.

Overall, it is assumed that every 3rd German has already experienced a mental illness phase in his or her life where the use of psychotropic drugs could have been useful. The study refers to the fact that every third German has already had an addiction problem, depression or psychosis and therefore could have been supported by psychotropic drugs. However, not every one of these patients takes psychotropic drugs and some patients manage to overcome their mental disorder even without psychotropic drugs.