antimanic drug

antimanic drug, any drug that stabilizes mood by controlling symptoms of mania, the abnormal psychological state of excitement.

Mania is a severe form of emotional disturbance in which a person is progressively and inappropriately euphoric and simultaneously hyperactive in speech and locomotor behaviour. This is often accompanied by significant insomnia (inability to sleep), excessive talking, extreme confidence, and increased appetite. As the episode builds, the person experiences racing thoughts, extreme agitation, and incoherence, frequently replaced with delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia, and ultimately may become hostile and violent and may finally collapse. In some persons, periods of depression and mania alternate, giving rise to bipolar disorder.

The most effective antimanic medications, which are used primarily for bipolar disorder, are the simple salts lithium chloride or lithium carbonate. Although some serious side effects can occur with large doses of lithium, the ability to monitor blood levels and keep the doses within modest ranges makes it an effective treatment for manic episodes, and it can also stabilize the mood swings of the patient with bipolar disorder. Lithium has a gradual onset of action, taking effect several weeks following initiation of treatment. The precise mechanism of its action is not known.

If patients take an overdose of lithium, or if their normal salt and water metabolism becomes unbalanced by intervening infections that cause anorexia or fluid loss, then loss of coordination, drowsiness, weakness, slurred speech, and blurred vision, as well as more serious chaotic cardiac rhythm and brain-wave activity with seizures may occur. Because lithium is generally excreted along with sodium in the urine, rehydration and supportive therapy are all that is required for treatment. Prolonged use of lithium, however, can in fact damage the body’s ability to respond properly to the hormone vasopressin, which stimulates the reabsorption of water, thus causing the emergence of diabetes insipidus, a disorder characterized by extreme thirst and excessive production of very dilute urine. Lithium can also interfere with the response of the thyroid gland to the thyroxin-stimulating hormone produced in the pituitary gland.

Other compounds used in the treatment of mania include valproic acid, carbamazepine, gabapentin, benzodiazepines (e.g., clonazepam and lorazepam), haloperidol, and chloropromazine. These substances reduce the transmission of nerve impulses in the brain and thereby lessen the severity of manic episodes. They are important antimanic alternatives to lithium in instances when lithium does not provide adequate symptom control, and, with some exceptions, they may be used in combination with lithium, particularly when rapid control of acute mania is needed to bridge the delay to onset of action of lithium therapy.