Overview

• The peer-reviewed work, published August 15 in Pharmaceutical Research by a University of Reading team, tested haloperidol on freshwater planaria.
• Worm activity dropped sharply after haloperidol exposure, a behavioral effect reported to mirror responses seen in mice and rats.
• Cyclodextrin carriers increased haloperidol’s water solubility about 20-fold and, when the drug was encapsulated, prevented it from reaching the worms.
• Researchers promote planaria as a low-cost, lower-ethics early screening tool that could reduce rodent use, with UK data citing 882,000 mice and 144,060 rats used in 2023.
• The University of Reading has incorporated the haloperidol–planaria assay into undergraduate teaching, with authors emphasizing the need for broader validation before any replacement of mammalian models.