In this paper, a general class of modified power-symmetric distributions is introduced. By choosing as symmetric model the normal distribution, the modified power-normal distribution is obtained. For the latter model, some of its more relevant statistical properties are examined. Parameters estimation is carried out by using the method of moments and maximum likelihood estimation. A simulation analysis is accomplished to study the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators. Finally, we compare the efficiency of the modified power-normal distribution with other existing distributions in the literature by using a real dataset.