Haloperidol is a phenyl-piperidinyl-butyrophenone that is used primarily to treat schizophrenia and other psychoses. It is also used in schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorders, ballism, and Tourette syndrome (a drug of choice) and occasionally as adjunctive therapy in mental retardation and the chorea of Huntington disease. It is a potent antiemetic and is used in the treatment of intractable hiccups. Haloperidol also exerts sedative and antiemetic activity. Haloperidol principal pharmacological effects are similar to those of piperazine-derivative phenothiazines. The drug has action at all levels of the central nervous system-primarily at subcortical levels-as well as on multiple organ systems. Haloperidol has strong antiadrenergic and weaker peripheral anticholinergic activity; ganglionic blocking action is relatively slight. It also possesses slight antihistaminic and antiserotonin activity. The precise mechanism whereby the therapeutic effects of haloperidol are produced is not known, but the drug appears to depress the CNS at the subcortical level of the brain, midbrain, and brain stem reticular formation. Haloperidol seems to inhibit the ascending reticular activating system of the brain stem (possibly through the caudate nucleus), thereby interrupting the impulse between the diencephalon and the cortex. The drug may antagonize the actions of glutamic acid within the extrapyramidal system, and inhibitions of catecholamine receptors may also contribute to haloperidol's mechanism of action. Haloperidol may also inhibit the reuptake of various neurotransmitters in the midbrain, and appears to have a strong central antidopaminergic and weak central anticholinergic activity. The drug produces catalepsy and inhibits spontaneous motor activity and conditioned avoidance behaviours in animals. The exact mechanism of antiemetic action of haloperidol has also not been fully determined, but the drug has been shown to directly affect the chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ) through the blocking of dopamine receptors in the CTZ. Haloperidol is marketed under the trade name Haldol among others.

Fluphenazine is a trifluoro-methyl phenothiazine derivative intended for the management of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Fluphenazine has not been shown effective in the management of behaviorial complications in patients with mental retardation. Fluphenazine blocks postsynaptic mesolimbic dopaminergic D1 and D2 receptors in the brain; depresses the release of hypothalamic and hypophyseal hormones and is believed to depress the reticular activating system thus affecting basal metabolism, body temperature, wakefulness, vasomotor tone, and emesis.

Perphenazine is a relatively high potency phenothiazine that blocks dopamine 2 receptors predominantly, but also may possess antagonist actions at histamine 1 and cholinergic M1 and alpha 1 adrenergic receptors in the vomiting center leading to reduced nausea and vomiting. The drug was approved by FDA for the treatment of schizophrenia and control of severe nausea and vomiting (either alone or in combination with amitriptyline hydrochloride). Perphenazine is extensively hepatic to metabolites via sulfoxidation, hydroxylation, dealkylation, and glucuronidation; primarily metabolized by CYP2D6 to N-dealkylated perphenazine, perphenazine sulfoxide, and 7-hydroxyperphenazine (active metabolite with 70% of the activity of perphenazine) and excreted in the urine and feces.