Brain plasticity and pathology in psychiatric disease: sites of action for potential therapy.

Recent advances have been made in understanding the changes in neuronal plasticity in psychiatric disease at the molecular level (changes in neurotransmission, long-term potentiation, long-term depression, glutamate receptors, synaptic strength and neurotrophic support) and the systems level (changes in hippocampal, frontal and amygdala function in health and disease and the impact of stress on the hippocampal/frontal axis), as well as in the impact of drugs and sites of action for therapeutic intervention. Drugs acting on plasticity could affect the abnormal set point in psychiatric disease, resulting in treatment of the disease rather than just the symptoms.