Copyright
©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Mar 22, 2016; 6(1): 66-83
Published online Mar 22, 2016. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v6.i1.66
Published online Mar 22, 2016. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v6.i1.66
Systems psychopharmacology: A network approach to developing novel therapies
Peter J Gebicke-Haerter, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, 68159 Mannheim, Germany
Author contributions: Gebicke-Haerter PJ solely contributed to the work.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interests with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Peter J Gebicke-Haerter, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, J5, 68159 Mannheim, Germany. peter.gebicke@zi-mannheim.de
Telephone: +49-621-17036252 Fax: +49-621-17036255
Received: August 28, 2015
Peer-review started: August 30, 2015
First decision: December 4, 2015
Revised: February 10, 2016
Accepted: February 23, 2016
Article in press: February 24, 2016
Published online: March 22, 2016
Peer-review started: August 30, 2015
First decision: December 4, 2015
Revised: February 10, 2016
Accepted: February 23, 2016
Article in press: February 24, 2016
Published online: March 22, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Pharmacotherapies of mental disorders have to take into account their multifactorial origins. Therefore, combinatorial drug therapies have to be devised targeting multiple molecules in disease networks. Mathematical approaches can aid in learning more about molecular interactions in disease networks and, by in silico simulations, discover dynamic changes in network properties. Targeting important nodes by drugs should be avoided to preserve network integrities. Efforts to find efficient combinations of drugs could be supported by more research into compounds contained in herbal extracts.