"Neuroscience-Based Nomenclature" for Mental Health?

Neuroskeptic iconNeuroskeptic
By Neuroskeptic
May 2, 2016 3:11 PMNov 20, 2019 2:38 AM

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Psychiatric drugs come in many kinds: there are antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications, and more. But what all of these categories have in common is that they're anti- something. This is how we classify these drugs - by what they treat. Except there's a problem - very few psychiatric drugs are only used to treat one thing. Take "antipsychotics". They're used in psychosis, but they're also a key tool in the treatment of mania, a different disorder entirely. Many of these drugs are also used to help treat depression, aggression, and more. Plus, it's not even clear that they treat psychosis per se - some people argue that they work by non-specifically suppressing or masking the symptoms. So should we call them "antipsychotics" at all? If not, what are they? Well, in an

unusual paper published in European Neuropsychopharmacology

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