Introduction to pharmacology Flashcards
What is a drug?
Chemicals that change the physiological function of a cell in a specific way
What is an antagonist?
They block a target, they can be competitive or non-competitive
What is an agonist?
They stimulate a target
What are four examples of targets?
Enzymes, ion channels, transmembrane transporter proteins and classical receptors.
What is an example of a chemical receptor?
Beta and Alpha adrenergic and histamine
What is an example of an enzyme?
Carbonic anhydrase- this produces aqueous humour
Cyclooxgenase- targeted by NSAIDs
What are examples of transport proteins?
NA+K+ ATPase and NA+K+Cl- cotransporter
Name the three sources of drugs.
Natural, semi-synthetic and synthetic.
What does increasing the dosage of the drug increase and why is this the case?
The likelihood of unwanted effects and drug reactions because it causes to effect other targets.
What does the drug-response curve show?
Increasing the dosage does increase the effect of the drug but only up to a certain point where it reaches its maximum effect range.
What is an adverse drug reaction (ADR)?
Manifestations of the adverse side effects of drugs administered therapeutically or in the course of diagnostic techniques.
What is the therapeutic index?
The ratio between the therapeutic dose and the toxic dose used to measure safety for a particular treatment. If narrow the drug needs to be carefully administrated.
Name the two reasons for individual variation in drug response.
Pharmacodynamic variation and genetic variation- drugs can be therapeutic to some people and have no effect on others
What are the four components of pharmacokinetics?
Absorption, distribution, biotransformation (metabolism) and excretion - describes what the drug does to the body, they can cause individual variability in drug response
Why would a drug be administrated parenteral (non-oral/ injection)?
If the drug is poorly absorbed by the gut
