Rethinking Clozapine: Lights and Shadows of a Revolutionary Drug

Abstract

The current literature globally highlights the efficacy of Clozapine in several psychiatric disorders all over the world, with an FDA indication for reducing the risk of repeated suicidal behavior in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. A growing field of research is also stressing a possible broader beneficial effect of Clozapine in promoting neuroprotection and neurotrophism. However, this drug is linked to several life-threatening side effects, such as agranulocytosis, myocarditis and seizures, that limit its use in daily clinical practice. For this work, a search was performed on PubMed using the terms “Clozapine indications”, “Clozapine adverse effects”, “Clozapine regenerative effects”, and “Clozapine neuroplasticity” with the aim of reviewing the scientific literature on Clozapine’s treatment indications, adverse effects and potential regenerative role. The results confirmed the efficacy of clozapine in clinical practice, although limited by its adverse effects. It appears crucial to raise awareness among clinicians about the potential benefits of using Clozapine, as well educating medical personnel about its risks and the early identification of possible adverse effects and their management.

G Protein-Coupled Receptor Dimerization—What Next?

“…It is effective for both negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia, but the precise mechanism of its action is not fully clear. It also has many serious side effects, the most important being agranulocytosis, myocarditis, cardiovascular, and respiratory effects [ 36 ]. Therefore, there are continuous studies that aim to find the actual molecular mechanism of action of CLZ in order to mimic it with a new compound, possibly devoid of side effects but equally potent in treating the symptoms.…”