Psychopharm

Question 1

What is a drug?

Answer 1

any chemical administered to bring about some desired change in the body. The difference between a drug and a toxin is the desired outcome

Question 2

Agonists

Answer 2

increase the behavior of interest

Question 3

Antagonist

Answer 3

Decrease the behavior of interest

Question 4

7 classes of psychoactive drugs

Answer 4

Antianxiety & sedatives
Antipsychotics
Antidepressants
Mood Stabilizers
Opioids
Stimulants
Psychedelic/hallucinogen

Question 5

Tolerance

Answer 5

the reduced ability of a drug to cause behavioral effects over repeated exposure

Question 6

Sensitization (“reverse tolerance”)

Answer 6

Enhanced ability of drugs to cause behavioral effects after occasional exposure

Question 7

What are the routs for a drug to enter the body?

Answer 7

injecting(directly bypasses the blood brain barrier)
snorting
orally (easy-ist)
inhaling

Question 8

What is the general site of action for psychoactive drugs?

Answer 8

Most psychoactive drugs work at the synapse to modulate neurotransmission in some way.

Question 9

The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia.

Answer 9

Antipsychotics work, in part, as antagonists of specific dopamine
receptors (D2R). This suggests that excess dopamine might contribute
to disorders including psychosis, but evidence from schizophrenic
patients doesn’t demonstrate enhanced dopamine signaling.

Question 10

Why is getting drugs into the brain hard?

Answer 10

because of the blood brain barrier

Question 11

why is combining sedatives and antianxiety drugs a bad idea?

Answer 11

Sedatives increase the binding of GABA by maximizing the amount of time the pore is open. antianxiety drugs influence the frequency of the pores opening

Question 12

How do we think anti-depressents work?

Answer 12

In general, antidepressants are believe to act as agonists of
serotonergic neurotransmission.

Question 13

ADME (drug adsorption)

Answer 13

Adsorption
• Distribution
• Metabolism
• Excretion

Question 14

PK/PD (drug distribution)

Answer 14

Pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) are the study of
how drugs distribute in time and space, respectively, within the body.

Question 15

Receptors

Answer 15

“parts of the cell that a drug

specifically binds to.”

Question 16

CT (Computed Tomography) Scan

Answer 16

low res, convenient, cheap, easy, ER’s have them

Question 17

Standard MRI (Magnetic Resonance)

Answer 17

uses water to get an image, just a photograph

Question 18

fMRI (Functional MRI)

Answer 18

The same scanner is used as standard MRI, uses levels of blood oxygenation in the brain. It’s a proxy measure – it does NOT measure brain activity.

Question 19

PET (Positron Electron Tomography)

Answer 19

uses a PET ligand, an unstable chemical you inject into people’s body so that it sticks to where you want it. Can be used to look at specific parts of the brain.