[Current and future pharmacotherapy of severe psychiatric disorders]

Despite of tremendous development in CNS research, current treatment is suboptimal especially in severe mental disorders. In medicine, there are two main methods of improving the healthcare provided: seeking new treatment procedures and perfecting (optimizing) the existing ones. Optimization of treatment includes not only practical tools such as therapeutic drug monitoring, but also implementation of general trends into the clinical practice. New pharmacological options include drugs aimed at other than monoaminergic systems and old drugs used before the psychopharmacological era. In pharmacoresistant depression promising options include switch to new multimodal/multifunctional antidepressants, augmentation with new atypical antipsychotics (cariprazine and brexpiprazole) and adjunctive treatment with anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic agents and nutraceuticals. Ketamine, opioids and psychedelics are in different phases of clinical testing. Recent advances in technology and emerging knowledge about the dysfunctional brain circuits and neuroplasticity have led to the development of different new neuromodulation techniques usually used as add-on therapy. In schizophrenia the cornerstone of the current treatment is still antipsychotic medications. In addition to aripiprazole two new partial dopamine agonists, brexpiprazole and cariprazine are now available. Especially the group of partial dopamine agonists is in the center of interest. Due to severe consequences of partial adherence, new formulations of long-acting injections of the second-generation antipsychotics with longer interval of application have been developed (3- month paliperidone palmitate). New treatment options not yet available include cannabidiol, glutamate modulators and nicotine receptors agonists.