CASE REPORT article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
Four cases for cariprazine and alcohol use disorder
Provisionally accepted
- University Clinical Center of Serbia, Clinic of psychiatry; Medical Faculty, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Alcohol can diminish individual health from the fetus to old age and affects a wide range of structures and processes in the central nervous system. The role of dopamine D2 and D3 receptors in addictive diseases is the subject of many years of research. Among many psychotropic medications, cariprazine actually preferentially binds to D3 receptors, and its binding is stronger than that of any other antipsychotic, and even that of dopamine itself. Some data indicate that cariprazine and its effects associated with D3 partial agonism, could improve the domain of cognitive and depressive symptoms, as well as in the sphere of motivation, reward and cravings reduction. Cases presentations: This case report describes four individual cases of patients who were alcohol addicts, with multiple hospitalizations during their treatment of dependence. All four patients were treated during the years with many different pharmacologic protocols, involving antipsychotics (olanzapine, quetiapine), mood stabilisers (carbamazepine, lamotrigine), anxiolytics (clonazepam, bromazepam), SSRI antidepressants (fluoxetine, paroxetine, escitalopram), but without achieving of the alcohol abstinence. Only by adding of cariprazine in the protocol, with almost total exclusion of other phychopharmacs, they achieved stable alcohol abstinence. Similarly, across all four cases, a marked improvement in depressive and cognitive symptoms was observed, and although each patient had been treated with antidepressants for many years, meaningful improvement occurred only after the introduction of cariprazine. Conclusion: The consistent achievement of full abstinence across all four patients suggests that it may have potential relevance in the management of alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, in the future, well conducted and highly controlled studies are needed to explore a potential cariprazine's role and its place in the management of alcohol dependence.
Keywords: alcohol dependence, Cariprazine, case report, cognitive symptoms, D3 receptors
Received: 20 Dec 2025; Accepted: 02 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Vicentic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sreten Vicentic
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.