Antipsychotics

From The Critics

Reviewer: Jeffrey S. Ross, MD(Rush University Medical Center)
Description: This book is an update on antipsychotic medications and represents volume 120 in a lengthy series on experimental pharmacology.
Purpose: The purpose is to thoroughly update the field of antipsychotic treatments by compiling an impressive array of authors who represent the leading researchers in antipsychotic pharmacology. The timing of this edition closely follows an explosion of new research and understanding of schizophrenia and its biological treatments, many of which remain in very active study today and promise to revolutionize the effective and safe treatment of this devastating illness.
Audience: Although not specifically stated, the target audience appears to be primarily schizophrenia and antipsychotic researchers, because a majority of the book covers basic science research and the testing of new antipsychotic compounds. The contributing authors do a superb job in their comprehensive discussion of this topic. The nonresearch clinician will find the book tremendously overinclusive and may become so mired in research issues that it will be hard to justify the very high price.
Features: The book consists of mostly text, with occasional well-illustrated graphs and tables to support it. It is very well organized in a logically flowing outline format, allowing the reader to skip around to relevant passages. The references are pertinent and abundant, and the table of contents and index are complete and concise. The appearance of the book is quite impressive, adding to its allure as a premier reference textbook.
Assessment: This is an impressive, comprehensive textbook on a complicated and rapidly expanding field of research. I doubt there exists a more definitive reference text of its kind. The difficulty with the book is identifying the very narrow audience who might need such a complete reference and who is willing to overlook the extremely steep purchase price. The nonresearch clinician can easily locate a more clinically focused book for a fraction of the price. The audience that might consider buying this book is the career psychopharmacology researcher whose work involves the study of antipsychotics.

Jeffrey S. Ross

This book is an update on antipsychotic medications and represents volume 120 in a lengthy series on experimental pharmacology. The purpose is to thoroughly update the field of antipsychotic treatments by compiling an impressive array of authors who represent the leading researchers in antipsychotic pharmacology. The timing of this edition closely follows an explosion of new research and understanding of schizophrenia and its biological treatments, many of which remain in very active study today and promise to revolutionize the effective and safe treatment of this devastating illness. Although not specifically stated, the target audience appears to be primarily schizophrenia and antipsychotic researchers, because a majority of the book covers basic science research and the testing of new antipsychotic compounds. The contributing authors do a superb job in their comprehensive discussion of this topic. The nonresearch clinician will find the book tremendously overinclusive and may become so mired in research issues that it will be hard to justify the very high price. The book consists of mostly text, with occasional well-illustrated graphs and tables to support it. It is very well organized in a logically flowing outline format, allowing the reader to skip around to relevant passages. The references are pertinent and abundant, and the table of contents and index are complete and concise. The appearance of the book is quite impressive, adding to its allure as a premier reference textbook. This is an impressive, comprehensive textbook on a complicated and rapidly expanding field of research. I doubt there exists a more definitive reference text of its kind. The difficulty with thebook is identifying the very narrow audience who might need such a complete reference and who is willing to overlook the extremely steep purchase price. The nonresearch clinician can easily locate a more clinically focused book for a fraction of the price. The audience that might consider buying this book is the career psychopharmacology researcher whose work involves the study of antipsychotics.

4 Stars! from Doody