[nocturnalman]

So it has been in the recent times reported that the monoamine theory of depression is not a full explanation of why depression happens and the research is shifting towards other explanations such as inflammation and autoimmune diseases.Then I want to know why reserpine is not used more(or again) in the treatment of schizophrenia ? When they disocvered chlorpromazine in the past all research and interest for reserpine vanished and still today many doctors claim that reserpine causes depression because it depleted the brain of neurotransmitters.But there are some papers that say the reserpine induced depression claim is a myth so that patients are not given reserpine which cannot be patented.It is clearly the case that reserpine as an antipsychotic causes much less side effects than modern antipsychotics.Reserpine lowers dopamine and therefore should stop positive symptoms of schizophrenia.The reason I am posting here about reserpine is because I read a paper from 1956 about 2 twins that developed schizophrenia at the same time and the symptom mentioned that caught my attention is the both of the girls had a sense of "unreality".Both did not do good on chlorpromazine but both became better again with reserpine.So I guess the reserpine also removed that sense of unreality(dpdr ?).So could reserpine help with dpdr ? It's hard to find any info on reserpine which comes from the plant rauwolfia serpentina because it seems like the pharma companies did a good job in eliminating it's use.

I have attached that paper about the case of the 2 girls.

 

[Peter]

It might have been dumped, because it is less selective than the other antipsychotics. It depletes several neurotransmitter instead of acting only on certain receptors. It's antihypertensive effect could also be a problem for patients who don't have hypertension.

 

[nocturnalman]

I wonder if it could help with my intrusive thoughts and this unreality feeling.I have the whole plant capsules which I want to try before jumping to amisulpride.But I have a feeling both won't help because I seem to have a glutamate problem(nmda hypofunction) because all it takes for all my symptoms to away is 5mg of diazepam.Lamotrigine works on the nmda hypofunction thing I am sure of that in my case as diazepam counteracts the increase glutamate.Only if there wasn't this steven johnson syndrome with lamotrigine I would have tried it 5 years ago.

 

[Peter]

Lamotrigine actually decreases excessive (but not normal) glutamate release, but the reason why it sometimes works for depersonalization disorder might be it's effect on potassium/sodium hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channel 1. Amisulprid is different to other antipsychotics, since it increases dopamine activity on certain dopamine receptors at lower doses.