Pharmacodynamics Flashcards
What are agonists?
endogenous molecules or drugs that interact with a receptor to elicit a biological response
What are antagonists?
endogenous molecules or drugs that interact with a receptor and limit or block the effect of agonists
What is the direct action of a drug?
Drug produces the desired response
What is the indirect action of a drug?
Drug interacts on target that is upstream from the biochemical process that produes the desired response
What is a full agonist?
Produce the maximum possible effects
What is a partial agonist?
Produce submaximal effects
What is a competitive antagonist?
Competes with the agonist for the same receptor binding site
What is pharmacodynamics?
What the drug does to the body
Give some examples of a drug having an indirect effect
- Opposing a physiological effect
- Increasing endogenous release
- Preventing endogenous release
- Inhibiting endogenous re-uptake
- Inhibiting endogenous metabolism
What is an example of a full agonist?
Drug that provides the maximum possible effect
What is an example of a partial agonist?
Drug that produces submaximal effects
What is an example of an antagonist?
Limits or blocks the effect of agonists
What is drug efficacy?
Drug efficacy is the ability of a drug to ellicit a response once bound to a drug target
What is drug potency?
refers to the amount of a drug, expressed as the concentration or dose, needed to produce a
defined effect
What is drug affinity?
The binding strength of a drug to its target
What is drug selectivity?
is a drug’s ability to discriminate
between drug targets
What is an adverse drug reaction?
terms that refer to any harmful or undesirable response to a drug
What is a type A drug reaction?
linked to the pharmacological effects of a drug
thus are predictable/dose-dependent
What is a type B drug reaction?
have no link with the pharmacological mechanism
of action and are thus unpredictable/idiosyncratic
What is the therapeutic range of a drug?
A drug needs to reach a certain level in the plasma to achieve
the necessary concentration at its site of action to be fully
effective – the Therapeutic range
What happens when a drug is below the therapeutic range?
Below the therapeutic range, the drug will not achieve the
necessary concentration at its site of action and its effect will be
suboptimal clinically
What is the MEC/ minimum effective concentration?
Minimum effective concentration (MEC) is the minimum plasma
concentration required to produce the therapeutic effect
What happens when a drug reaches ABOVE a certain concentration?
Above a certain concentration, a drug will cause unacceptable
toxic effects
What is the minimal toxic concentration?
Minimum toxic concentration (MTC) is the minimum plasma
concentration at which unacceptable toxicity occurs.
What is the therapeutic index?
a measure of drug safety, is the ratio
between the dose/concentration of a drug producing toxicity and the
dose/concentration that produces a therapeutic effect
What is drug tolerance?
is the diminished response to a
drug following repeated or prolonged exposure
