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All current drugs for treating schizophrenia target dopamine receptors, and atypical antipsychotics also target serotonin receptors. Yet evidence has long existed that glutamate receptors also are important in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
A team from Russia and the U.S. designed and tested a new class of drugs that targets two types of glutamate receptors. Several recently identified genes linked to schizophrenia encode these receptors. The receptors regulate the concentration of glutamate at the synapse. The team randomized 196 patients with chronic schizophrenia to one of the new class of glutamate drugs, called LY404039; to a currently approved treatment (olanzapine); or to placebo. The two active drugs were of comparable efficacy i…