Developing selectively nonselective drugs for treating CNS disorders

For the past two decades, drug discovery has been dominated by the ‘magic bullet’ or single molecular target-based approach. But for many diseases of the central nervous system, especially complex polygenic disorders such as schizophrenia, the most effective drugs have affinity for many molecular targets. Various methods have been recently proposed for developing so-called ‘selectively nonselective drugs’ or ‘magic shotguns’ – that is, therapeutics with more complex pharmacological profiles.