The first antipsychotic medication was discovered by a French naval surgeon named Henri Laborit. Dr. Laborit had little interest in psychiatry, but was avidly seeking a way to better treat wounded soldiers who were in shock.

You’ve probably heard about Fanapta (iloperidone), a new antipsychotic marketed by Vanda Pharmaceuticals. No, it hasn’t been approved officially yet, but it is likely to win approval in July, and the company has already been taking out teaser ads in the journals and has even sponsored a touring promotional CME program run by Stephen Stahl.

Here is some selective coverage of interesting recent developments in antipsychotic medications.

A non-profit agency called the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has released an analysis of the side effects of Chantix (varenicline), and the news is not good.

How should we treat patients with both bipolar disorder and a comorbid anxiety disorder? The answer is not straightforward.

Dr. Jibson, there have been several meta-analyses comparing atypical antipsychotics published over the last few years. They are all long, complicated papers, and the conclusions are often controversial. Can you help us understand this literature?

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Most psychiatrists rely on the Folstein Mini Mental State Exam for a rapid, office-based neuropsychological assessment. But the MMSE has some serious limitations. A hot new test, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) appears to work much better.

Psychiatric conditions are easy to fake, because there are no truly objective tests for their diagnoses. The prevalence of malingered PTSD symptoms is hard to assess. The actual prevalence of ADHD malingering has never been formally studied, but the high rate of stimulant diversion on college campuses implies that the problem is significant.

Tamoxifen, an estrogen blocker that is approved for the treatment of breast cancer, successfully treated patients with mania in a placebo-controlled trial.