Advancing Mental Disorder Therapies: Drug Repositioning and Translational Insights from Animal Models
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Neurobiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2025 | Viewed by 21
Special Issue Editors
Interests: neuroscience; neuropharmacology; behavior; neuroendocrinology; schizophrenia
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: traumatic brain injury; neuroinflammation; synaptic plasticity; learning and memory
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Neuropsychiatric disorders profoundly affect quality of life through distressing symptoms and social consequences such as exclusion and unemployment. These factors create a vicious cycle that hinders both recovery and social reintegration. Emotional vulnerability, stress, and unhealthy habits contribute to their development. Affecting approximately 25% of adults, these chronic and prevalent disorders impose significant economic burdens on public health systems. Mental disorders arise from complex interactions among genetic, environmental, and pathological factors, yet their etiopathology remains poorly understood. Current pharmacological treatments target only some aspects of these disorders and face significant limitations: a large proportion of patients are refractory to available therapies, many experience adverse effects that severely diminish treatment adherence or necessitate discontinuation due to their severity, and treatments often lose efficacy over time. These challenges highlight the urgent need for more effective and better-tolerated therapeutic options. This Special Issue seeks to advance the understanding of the physiopathological mechanisms underlying mental illnesses to identify novel therapeutic targets aimed at discovering drugs that are more effective and safer. In this regard, drug repositioning offers a valuable alternative by leveraging the established safety profiles of existing medications to meet the safety requirements desired in new treatments. Additionally, the use of animal models is emphasized as a critical translational tool to validate therapeutic hypotheses prior to clinical trials.
Prof. Dr. Claudia Bregonzio
Dr. Mariela Fernanda Pérez
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- anxiety
- depression
- Parkinson's disease
- Alzheimer
- schizophrenia
- neurotransmitter imbalance
- novel treatments
- new pharmacological targets
- preclinical studies
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