Animal Models in Tardive Dyskinesia

The introduction of neuroleptics in 1952 to clinical practice was followed by numerous reports in the literature describing a syndrome of abnormal involuntary movements that appeared with increasing frequency during treatment or during withdraw al from neuroleptics. This syndrome was first described in the late 1950s (Hall et al., 1956 ; Kullenkampf and Tarnow, 1956 ; Schoenecker, 1957 ; Sigwald et al., 1959 ) and these reversible and irreversible drug-related dyskinesias were subsequently named tardive dyskinesia (Uhrband and Faurbye, 1960 ). The role of neuroleptics as the cause of tardive dyskinesia remained controversial for many years; subsequently, a number of investigators concluded that chronic neuroleptic treatment may precipitate TD only in those patients who are already predisposed to the development of this disorder (Smith and Baldessarini, 1980 ; Itil et al., 1981 ; Kane and Smith, 1982 ; Marsden, 1985; Waddington et al., 1988; Toenniessen et al., 1985 ; Hanssen et al., 1988 ).