It is used to treat a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders including dyskinesia, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, negative symptoms of psychosis, and agitation and aggression in the elderly.

[4] In another study in which alcoholic patients were given titrated doses up to 800 mg/day, subjects showed significant improvements in ratings of withdrawal, craving, psychiatric symptoms and quality of life.

Antipsychotic drugs are the most common treatment for these symptoms, but often come with a host of side-effects including orthostatic hypotension and deficits in vigilance and attention.

One clinical study of patients with tardive dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's disease found that tiapride significantly improved motor abilities without affecting other parkinsonian symptoms.

[7] Although it is considered a "safe" medicine, it is, like sulpiride, strictly contraindicated for patients under the age of 18 due to its effects during the process of puberty.

[9] This is because dopamine plays a primary role in regulating prolactin release by binding to D2 receptors on prolactin-secreting cells in the anterior pituitary.

The side-effect reported most commonly to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is rhabdomyolysis, a condition characterized by muscle tissue breakdown.

[4] However, given the drug's fairly wide window of tolerable doses,[2] dosages can often be titrated to obtain the desired effect without bringing about motor deficits.

These effects are thought to be reduced in tiapride relative to typical antipsychotics because of its selectivity for the limbic system over extrapyramidal areas that control movement.

[2] Another study in rats found tiapride's affinity for the septum, a limbic region, to be over thirty times as high as for the striatum.