Asenapine Pharmacology

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Asenapine is an atypical antipsychotic that acts as an antagonist at multiple receptors, including dopamine D2 and serotonin 5-HT2A, contributing to its antipsychotic and mood-stabilizing effects.

Adverse effects of asenapine include somnolence, dizziness, and extrapyramidal symptoms.

Because asenapine is significantly metabolized by CYP1A2, inhibitors or inducers of these enzymes can affect its plasma concentrations.

Co-administration with other CNS depressants may increase the risk of sedation and impaired cognitive or motor function.

Asenapine can prolong the QT interval, so caution is advised when used with other medications that affect cardiac conduction.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host pharmacist, Eric Christensen.
0:04.8	Thank you so much for listening today. As always, go get that free 31-page PDF on the top 200 drugs.
0:12.1	Great study guide. You can do that at real-life pharmacology.com. Also, if you're looking for board certification study materials, different educational content for pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, definitely go check out MedEd 101.1.com slash store.
0:31.7	Tons of resources there, review courses, books, all sorts of different good stuff that can help you learn. Pharmacy, pharmacology,
0:39.3	and other topics, much better. All right, with that said, let's get into the drug of the day today,
0:45.3	and that is a centipine. Brand name is Saffris, and this medication is classified as a second-generation antipsychotic.
0:56.6	As you could imagine, the probable uses for this medication that you're going to see out in practice
1:03.3	are for bipolar disorder, as well as schizophrenia.
1:09.4	Now mechanistically, again, I alluded to the fact it's a second generation
1:13.2	atypical antipsychotic. With that, when you always hear somebody say that a medication is
1:19.1	antipsychotic, you can likely suspect that it's got dopamine blocking activity. And indeed,
1:24.9	a centipine does have that. It's also got some serotonergic activity as well,
1:31.4	serotonergic blocking activity at specific receptors,
1:35.2	5HT1A and B, 2A and B, 2C, and 5 through 7 as well.
1:42.2	So again, there's kind of multiple modes of mechanisms with this medication.
1:48.9	Again, the classification goes back to the dopamine blocking activity that it has.
1:55.5	It also has some antihistamine type effects as well as some alpha blocking effects as well.
2:02.2	Those are lesser extents.
2:04.2	They aren't as potent as, you know, other agents, for example.
2:08.5	But when it comes to the side effect profile, we could recognize and understand that some of
2:13.1	those other mechanisms other than the dopamine blocking action can present some problems or, you know,
2:21.6	potentially contribute to some problems or have additive effects to other medications
	...

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