Abstract

What is the appropriate dose of an antipsychotic in an animal model? The literature reveals no standard rationale across studies. This study was designed to use in vivo dopamine D₂ receptor occupancy as a cross-species principle for deriving clinically comparable doses for animal models. The relationship between dose, plasma levels, and in vivo dopamine D₂ receptor occupancy was established in rats for a range of doses administered as a single dose or multiple doses (daily injections or osmotic minipump infusions) for five of the most commonly used antipsychotics. As a single dose, haloperidol (0.04–0.08 mg/kg), clozapine (5–15 mg/kg), olanzapine (1–2 mg/kg), risperidone (0.5–1 mg/kg), and quetiapine (10–25 mg/kg) reached clinically comparable occupancies. However, when these “optimal” single doses were administered as multiple doses, either by injection or by a mini-pump, it led to no or inappropriately low trough (24-h) occupancies. This discrepancy arises because the half-life of antipsychotics in rodents is 4 to 6 times faster than in humans. Only when doses 5 times higher than the optimal single dose were administered by pump were clinically comparable occupancies obtained (e.g., haloperidol, 0.25 mg/kg/day; olanzapine, 7.5 mg/kg/day). This could not be achieved for clozapine or quetiapine due to solubility and administration constraints. The study provides a rationale as well as clinically comparable dosing regimens for animal studies and raises questions about the inferences drawn from previous studies that have used doses unrepresentative of the clinical situation.