Introduction to Content Flashcards
Why is it useful as a psychologist to know about drug actions?
Because knowing drug actions can help us better understand the pathology of a specific illness (for example, knowing how an SSRI modifies neural activity can tell us which pathways have gone awry)
What is a drug effect?
The factors that contribute to the overall outcome of a drug (i.e. what does the drug say it will do?)
What is a drug action?
Describes how the drug interacts with synapses and physiology to produce the effect
- drug actions show us that the brain is highly adaptive (i.e. once a drug is being regularly used, the brain no longer produces as much of the chemical effect itself and instead relies on the drug)
What is a therapeutic index?
The dose at which the average person would feel better, and the dose at which the average person would overdose (a narrow TI means a more potentially lethal drug)
Before the rise of pharmacology in the 1950s, what was the preferred treatment of certain neurological and psychological illnesses?
A frontal lobe lobectomy or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
What began the “age of medication”? When was this?
In the 1950s, the discovery of barbiturates launched society into the age of medication
Why were barbiturates so popular? What were some negative consequences of this?
barbiturates were the original sleeping pill
- they helped with anxiety and bipolar disoder
- they were very dangerous because they have a narrow TI, therefore it is very easy to overdose on, and the medication negatively interacts with alcohol
What substituted barbiturates in the 1960s?
Benzodiazepines
Why were benzo’s a part of the pill culture?
Because they were less dangerous than barbiturates (having a wider TI), and claimed to influence the same kinds of disorders, ordinary people, lacking in pathologies, began to take them as a part of their daily routine of self-betterment
What was the consequence of having benzodiazepines so readily available for the average person?
People began to take dexadrine (D-amphetamine) as an upper to counteract the benzo they had taken the night prior to sleep (thus began a cycle of uppers to wake up, and downers to wind down)
Why was dexedrine so popular?
It was popular due to the acceptance and endorsement of celebrities to take uppers, it gave them energy to complete tasks as well as to promote weight loss (a side effect being lack of appetite) [marketed mostly to housewives].
Why was Dexedrine use so dangerous to use?
it proved to be a very dangerous drug because people who were taking dexedrine began to present with amphetamine psychosis - symptoms of psychosis indistinguishable from that of schizophrenia - and the symptoms would continue to persist even after the drug had left the body
What is a schedule II drug?
The most restricted category of drug
Why is fentanyl so dangerous?
Because it has a very narrow TI
What does off-label mean?
Prescribing a drug for something other than what it was researched for
