By Kelly ServickFor the first time in decades, researchers may have a new way to tweak brain signals to treat psychosis and other symptoms of schizophrenia.
Results from a 245-person clinical trial hint that a compound called SEP-363856, which seems to act on neural receptors involved in dopamine signaling, might address a broader range of schizophrenia symptoms than currently available drugs do—and with fewer side effects.“If these results are confirmed, this will be big, big news,” says Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist at Columbia University.
The drug’s developer, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., identified it through an unusual screening process not guided by the brain circuits and receptors already implicated in the disease, Lieberman