[alpot]

The Latuda website on "How Latuda Works" has this to say:

"It is not known exactly how latuda works",.... but it is thought to work by adjusting dopamine and serotonin.

I was hoping for more than a one-liner.

Does anyone know?

[Travelinglady]

Alas, alpot, this kind of statement is made for about every such drug on the market related to mental disorders. The docs think the drug fiddles with our brain chemicals--and that's all they know.

I hope one day serotonin levels and other brain chemical levels can actually be measured and adjusted with pinpoint accuracy.

[Sometimes psychotic]

So I can tell you what it binds to in the brain but the brain is so interconnected I don't think there is a unified theory of how it works. So it binds to a number of receptors some seemingly irrelevant like the histamine receptor...depending on which histamine receptor is bound by an AP you cause metabolic alterations triggering hunger/weight gain etc....all the APs are derived from antihistamines. There are others I won't go into but the kind of universal target of all functional APs is the D2 dopamine receptor. All of the atypicals additionally bind serotonin receptors unlike the earlier typical they seem to have reduced side effects as far as eps so these things are thought to be linked. The APs are sometimes called dirty drugs becuase they bind so many receptors but this is important due to this side effect thing.

D2...ok there are several hypothesis as to what causes hallucinations etc....if you give a person amphetamines you can trigger dopamine release and induce psychosis..likewise antipsychotics reduce psychosis and the ones that work bind d2. The dopamine hypothesis is born...however believable reports don't really show an increase of dopamine in the brains of people with sz. Another drug pcp also causes psychosis...it binds to nmda and prevents it's activity....this also causes the negative symptoms associated with sz flat affect, etc. thing is if you block D2 you actaully increase levels of nmda so your counteract in any natural reduction that might be in place. So same d2 two different theories, it could even be some of each....while there is a gentic component to all of this it's certainly not any one gene but a pattern of many...I have like 20 differnt sz risk alleles some affecting both pathways maybe you have to hit both? Who knows....

If you're looking for something more concrete I recommend stahls essential psychopharmacology ....every ap with binding profiles for different receptors.