[Psychopharmacological drugs and ethiopathogenic theories in psychiatry. From discovery context to epistemological obstacle].

This work postulates the thesis that the development of the contemporary psychopharmacology, which began with the chemical changes imposed to molecules with antihistaminergic properties, modelled the current ethiopatogenic theories of mental diseases. The development of chlorpromazine and imipramine was coincident with the beginning of the research about neurotransmission. This coincidence contributed for the construction of the dopaminergic theory of schizophrenia and in the monoaminergic theory of depression. Limitations of the effectivity of current drugs, as observed in the trials CATIE and STAR-D may justify a change of perspective in the search for new molecular targets for the treatment of both diseases. Historical data are provided to illustrate the above mentioned thesis, in the perspective of two epistemological concepts: the context of discovery proposed by Hans Reichenbach and the epistemological obstacle, proposed by Gaston Bachelard.