Pimozide promotes autophagy, used to lower tics

How interesting, Pimozide, a drug that promotes autophagy, is used as a treatment of several neuropsychiatric diseases, including TS:

Pimozide is a diphenylbutylpiperidine derivative with neuroleptic properties that has been found to be useful in the management of chronic schizophrenic patients.

The basic mechanism of pimozide action is believed to be related to its action on central aminergic receptors. Pimozide is used in its oral preparation in schizophrenia and chronic psychosis, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, and resistant tics.

Interestingly, in a clinical study, pimozide was found to reduce hyperkinesias associated with Huntington’s disease. (R1)

In summary, our work has identified eight compounds that can induce autophagic degradation and reduce the accumulation of misfolded proteins.

Interestingly, other than penitrem A, all seven FDA-approved drugs showed surprisingly little toxicity in our assay, even though both rapamycin and tamoxifen had a negative impact on the cell numbers (R1)