Better than Prozac: Creating the Next Generation of Psychiatric Drugs

Every day millions of people take psychiatric drugs. In Better Than Prozac Samuel Barondes considers the benefits and limitations of Prozac, Ritalin, Valium, Risperdal, and other widely used medications and the ways that superior ones are being created.
In tracing the early history of these drugs Barondes describes the accidental observations that led to their discovery and their great impact on our view of mental illness. He goes on to show how their unexpected therapeutic effects were attributed to their influence on neurotransmitters that carry signals in the brain and how this guided their improvement.
But Barondes reminds us that, like the originals, current psychiatric drugs don't always work, and often have negative side effects. Furthermore, none were crafted as remedies for known brain abnormalities. In contrast, the design of the drugs of the future will be based on a different approach: an understanding of the molecular mechanisms that give rise to specific patterns of mental symptoms. Using colorful examples of contemporary research, he shows how it is gradually leading to a new generation of psychiatric medications.
A lucid evaluation of psychopharmacology, Better Than Prozac offers a deep understanding of psychiatric drugs for people who take them, those who are considering them, and those who are just fascinated by the powerful effects of these simple chemicals on our thoughts and our feelings.

Publishers Weekly

In this readable, upbeat treatise, Barondes, a professor of psychiatry and neurobiology, reviews how the advent of powerful and versatile psychiatric drugs has revolutionized both the treatment and the understanding of mental illness, and assesses the prospects for further advances. Covering all the major categories of psychoactive drugs, Barondes charts the (usually serendipitous) discovery of blockbusters like Thorazine, Prozac, Valium, Benzedrine and Ritalin and their unanticipated effects (and side-effects) in treating schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and a host of other disorders. He shows how the success of these drugs has helped uncover the neurological mechanisms underlying psychiatric illness and all but obliterated the old conceptual divide between the physical and the psychological. Barondes is an engaging guide to the new biological paradigm of psychiatry. He gives lay readers a lucid introduction to such topics as the role of neurotransmitters, the psychological similarities of mice and men, and advances in genetics and neurology that promise better, precisely tailored drugs and new treatments for neural disorders like Alzheimer's and narcolepsy. He touches on some of the controversies surrounding psychopharmacology-the large placebo effect, possibly murderous idiosyncratic responses of patients to drugs, the over-use of Ritalin and amphetamines for ADHD kids and the marketing of drugs for such mild conditions as social phobia (i.e., shyness)-but he has a generally sanguine view of these drugs and their wide application. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.