Do psychiatric drugs work differently in people with psychiatric diagnoses?
• Michael Albert, 2nd year medical student Nottingham University Medical School, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH Moncrieff and Cohen’s view of ‘How do psychiatric drugs work?’ was amusing. Out of the 20 references, 8 are by the authors themselves, of which one is a book and the other is a book chapter. I wonder whether this is a very scientific way of doing things. They cite two articles published in 1960 to argue about the mechanism of action of psychotropic drugs. This was within a few years of the first psychotropic drugs and the first neurotransmitters were identified i.e. when psychopharmacology was a very newborn speciality. When telephone was invented, it was claimed that every American city needs a telephone. It will be inappropriate to use this statement to restrict the use of phones. The authors argue that psychotropic drugs act by causing sedation, activation, psychomotor slowing and altered sense perception. Valproate and carbamazepine are used to treat bipolar d
