Psychopharmacology

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Psychopharmacology

Psychopharmacology (from Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
, ps?khe, "breath, life, soul"; , pharmakon, "drug"; and , -logia
-logy

-logy is a suffix in English language, found in words originally adapted from Ancient Greek words ending in -????a . The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French language -logie, which was in turn inherited from the Latin language -logia....
) is the study of drug-induced changes in mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior.

The field of psychopharmacology studies a wide range of substances with various types of psychoactive properties.

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Psychopharmacology (from Greek

Ancient Greek

Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the study of drug action. More specifically it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and exogenous chemicals that alter normal biochemical function....
and psychopharmacology do not mainly focus on psychedelic

Psychedelic drug

A psychedelic substance is any psychoactive drugs whose primary action is to alter the thought processes of the brain and perception of the mind....
or recreational drugs

Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes rather than for employment, Medicine or Spirituality purposes, although the distinction is not always clear ....
, as the majority of studies are conducted for the development, study, and use of drugs for the modification of behavior and the alleviation of symptoms, particularly in the treatment of mental disorders (psychiatric medication

Psychiatric medication

A psychiatric medication is a licenced psychoactive drug taken to exert an effect on the mental state and used to treat mental disorders. Usually prescribed in psychiatry settings, these medications are typically made of Chemical synthesis chemical compounds, although some are naturally occurring....
). While studies are conducted on all psychoactives by both fields, psychopharmacology focuses primarily on the psychoactive and chemical interactions with the brain

Human brain

The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. It has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over five times as large as the "average brain" of a mammal with the same body size....
.

Psychoactive drugs may originate from natural sources such as plants and animals, or from artificial sources such as chemical synthesis

Chemical synthesis

In chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions in order to get a product , or several products. This happens by physics and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions....
in the laboratory. These drugs interact with particular target sites or receptors found in the nervous system

Nervous system

The nervous system is a Neural network of specialized cells that communicate information about an animal's surroundings and itself. It processes this information and causes reactions in other parts of the body....
to induce widespread changes in physiological or psychological functions. The specific interaction between drugs and their receptors is referred to as "drug action

Drug action

The action of drugs on the human body is called pharmacodynamics, and what the body does with the drug is called pharmacokinetics. The drugs that enter the human tend to stimulate certain receptors, ion channels, act on enzymes or transporter proteins....
", and the widespread changes in physiological or psychological function is referred to as "drug effect".

Historical overview

The use of psychoactive drug

Psychoactive drug

A psychoactive drug or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it alters brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood , consciousness and behaviour....
s predates recorded history. Hunter-gatherer societies tended to favor hallucinogenic drugs

Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants

The general group of pharmacology agents commonly known as hallucinogens can be divided into three broad categories: Psychedelic drugs, dissociatives, and deliriants....
, and today their use can still be observed in many surviving tribal

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups ....
cultures. The exact drug used depends on what the particular ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment....
a given tribe lives in can support, and are typically found growing wild. Such drugs include various hallucinogenic mushrooms

Psychedelic mushroom

Psilocybin mushrooms are fungus mainly of the psilocybe genus that contain the Psychedelic drug substances psilocybin and psilocin, and occasionally other psychoactive tryptamines....
and cacti

Cacti

Cacti is an open source, web-based graphing tool designed as a frontend to RRDtool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti allows a user to poll services at predetermined intervals and graph the resulting data....
, along with many other plants. These societies generally attach spiritual significance to such drug use, and often incorporate it into their religious practices.

The common muscimol

Muscimol

Muscimol is the major psychoactive alkaloid present in many mushrooms of the Amanita genus. Unlike psilocybin, a tryptamine, muscimol is a potent, selective agonist of the GABA A receptor receptor....
-bearing mushroom Amanita muscaria
Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita....
, also known as the "Fly Agaric", is frequently regarded as one of the first used psychoactive drugs, it is suspected to be the primary or active ingredient

Active ingredient

An active ingredient , also active pharmaceutical ingredient or bulk active, is the substance in a medication that is pharmaceutically active....
in the sacred drug of ancient India, known as Soma

Soma

Soma , or Haoma , from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the later Vedic civilization and Greater Iran cultures....
. There are many modern theories citing the discovery of its psychoactive properties as far back as 10,000 BCE.

With the dawn of the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic period was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 Before the Christian Era in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age....
and the proliferation of agriculture, new entheogens came into use as a natural by-product of farming. Among them were opium

Opium

Opium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating the immature seed pods of Opium poppy . It contains up to 12% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade....
, cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa L., Cannabis indica Lam., and Cannabis ruderalis Janisch....
, and alcohol

Ethanol

Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatility , flammable, colorless liquid....
derived from the fermentation of cereals and fruits. Most societies began developing herblores, lists of herbs which were good for treating various physical and mental ailments. For example, St. John's Wort was traditionally prescribed in parts of Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
for depression (in addition to use as a general-purpose tea

Tea

Tea refers to the agricultural products of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods....
), and Chinese medicine developed elaborate lists of herbs and preparations.

With the scientific revolution

Scientific revolution

The period which many History of science call the Scientific Revolution is commonly viewed as the foundation and origin of modern science.It was a time roughly coinciding with the later part of the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance in which scientific ideas in physics, astronomy, and biology evolved rapidly....
in Europe and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, the use of traditional herbal remedies fell out of favor with the mainstream medical establishment, although a few people continued to use and maintain knowledge of traditional European herblore. In the early 20th century, scientists began reassessing this rejection of traditional herbs in medicine. A number of important psychiatric drugs have been developed as a by-product of the analysis of organic compounds present in traditional herbal remedies. In the latter half of the 20th century, research into new psychopharmacologic drugs exploded, with many new drugs being discovered, created, and tested. Many once-popular drugs are now out of favor, and there are fashions in psychiatric drugs, as with any other kind of drug.

Only since the 1950s has the use of psychiatric drugs to restore mental health

Mental health

Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognition or emotional Quality of life or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychol...
, or at least limit aberrant behavior, been a part of medical therapeutics, when a number of new classes of pharmacological agents were discovered, notably tranquillizers (e.g., chlorpromazine

Chlorpromazine

Chlorpromazine is a phenothiazine antipsychotic, and the oldest in the antipsychotic family of drugs. It is a typical antipsychotic. It is principally used in the treatment of schizophrenia, though it has also been used to treat severe manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder....
, reserpine

Reserpine

Reserpine is an indole alkaloid antipsychotic and antihypertensive drug that has been used for the control of hypertension and for the relief of psychotic behaviors, although because of the development of better drugs for these purposes and because of its numerous side-effects, it is rarely used today....
, and other milder agents) and antidepressant

Antidepressant

An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used for alleviating major depressive disorder or dysthymia. Drug groups known as MAOIs, tricyclics, and second-generation antidepressants such as SSRIs, and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are particularly associated with the term....
s (including the highly effective group known as tricyclic antidepressants), and LSD

LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Its unusual psychological effects, which include visuals of colored patterns behind the eyes in the mind, a sense of time distorting, and crawling geometric patterns, have made it one of the most widely known psyched...
was popularized among many psychiatrists for a certain time as a mental miracle drug capable of curing all manner of problems. Lithium

Lithium

Lithium is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft alkali metal with a silver-white color. Under standard conditions for temperature and pressure, it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element....
is widely used to allay the symptoms of affective disorders and especially to prevent recurrences of both the manic and the depressed episodes in manic-depressive individuals. The many commercially marketed antipsychotic agents (including thiothixene

Thiothixene

Thiothixene is a thioxanthene Medication used as a typical antipsychotic medication. It is a thioxanthene derivative and is the cis isomer of N,Ndimethyl-...
, chlorpromazine

Chlorpromazine

Haloperidol

Haloperidol is a typical antipsychotic. It is in the butyrophenone class of antipsychotic medications and has pharmacology similar to the phenothiazines....
, and thioridazine

Thioridazine

Thioridazine is a piperidine antipsychotic psychoactive drug belonging to the phenothiazine drug group and was previously widely used in the treatment of schizophrenia and psychosis....
) all share the common property of blocking the dopamine receptors in the brain. (Dopamine

Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter occurring in a wide variety of animals, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In the human brain, this phenethylamine functions as a neurotransmitter, activating the five types of dopamine receptors ? D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5, and their variants....
acts to help transmit nerve impulses in the brain.) Since scientists have found a direct relationship between dopamine blockage and reduction of schizophrenic symptoms, many believe that schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia , from the Ancient Greek Root schizein and phren, phren- is a psychiatry diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality....
may be related to excess dopamine.

These drugs contrast sharply with the hypnotic

Hypnotic

Hypnotic drugs induce sleep, used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia. Because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects, ranging from anxiolysis to production of unconsciousness, they are often referred to collectively as sedative-hypnotic drugs....
and sedative

Sedative

A sedative is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement.At higher doses it may result in slurred speech, staggering gait , poor judgment, and slow, uncertain reflexes....
drugs that formerly were in use and that clouded the patient's consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
and impaired his/her motor and perceptual abilities. The antipsychotic

Antipsychotic

Antipsychotics are a group of psychoactive drugs commonly but not exclusively used to treat psychosis, which is typified by schizophrenia. Over time a wide range of antipsychotics have been developed....
drugs can allay the symptoms of anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components. These components combine to create an unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry....
and reduce agitation, delusions, and hallucinations, and the antidepressants lift spirits and quell suicidal impulses. The heavy prescription use of drugs to reduce agitation and quell anxiety has led, however, to what many psychiatrists consider an overuse of such medications. An overdose of a tranquilizer may cause loss of muscular coordination and slowing of reflexes, and prolonged use can lead to addiction

Addiction

The term "addiction" is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive physical dependence or psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction, video game addiction, crime, alcoholism, compulsive overeating, problem gambling, computer addiction, pornography addiction, etc....
. Toxic side effects such as jaundice psychoses, dependency, or a reaction similar to Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills and speech, as well as other functions....
may develop. The drugs may produce other minor symptoms (e.g., heart palpitations, rapid pulse, sweating) because of their action on the autonomic nervous system

Autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control system, maintaining human homeostasis in the body....
.

Psychopharmacological research

In psychopharmacology, researchers are interested in any substance that crosses the blood-brain barrier

Blood-brain barrier

The blood-brain barrier is a metabolic or cellular structure in the central nervous system that restricts the passage of various chemical substances and microscopic objects between the bloodstream and the neural tissue itself, while still allowing the passage of substances essential to metabolism function ....
and thus has an effect on behavior, mood or cognition. Drugs are researched for their physicochemical properties, physical side effects

Side Effects

Side Effects is an anthology of 17 comical short stories written by Woody Allen between 1975 and 1980, all but one of which were previously published in, variously, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Kenyon Review....
, and psychological side effects. Researchers in psychopharmacology study a variety of different psychoactive substances that include alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl Functional group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group....
, cannabinoids

Cannabinoids

Cannabinoids are a group of terpenephenolic compounds present in Cannabis . The broader definition of cannabinoids refers to a group of substances that are structurally related to tetrahydrocannabinol or that bind to cannabinoid receptors....
, club drugs, hallucinogens, opiates, nicotine

Nicotine

Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants which constitutes approximately 0.6?3.0% of dry weight of tobacco, with biosynthesis taking place in the roots, and accumulating in the leaves....
and caffeine

Caffeine

Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a psychoactive stimulant drug and a mild diuretic. Caffeine was discovered by a German chemist, Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, in 1819....
, psychomotor stimulants, inhalants, and anabolic-androgenic steroids. They also study drugs used in the treatment of affective and anxiety disorders, as well as schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia , from the Ancient Greek Root schizein and phren, phren- is a psychiatry diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality....
.

Clinical studies are often very specific, typically beginning with animal testing, and ending with human testing. In the human testing phase, there is often a group of subjects, one group is given a placebo

Placebo

The placebo effect is a phenomenon in medicine where the results of a medical treatment are affected by their symbolism, and not just their medical value....
, and the other is administered a carefully measured therapeutic dose of the drug in question. After all of the testing is completed, the drug is proposed to the concerned regulatory authority (e.g. the U.S. FDA), and is either commercially introduced to the public, introduced to the public via prescription

Medical prescription

A prescription is a health-care program implemented by a physician or other medical practitioner in the form of instructions that govern the plan of care for an individual patient....
, or deemed safe enough for over the counter

Over-the-counter drug

Over-the-counter drugs are medications that may be sold to a customer without a medical prescription. The term "over-the-counter" is somewhat counter-intuitive, since these items can often be found on the shelves of stores and bought like any other packaged product in some countries in contrast to prescription drug which are more likely to l...
sale.

Though particular drugs are prescribed for specific symptoms or syndromes, they are usually not specific to the treatment of any single mental disorder. Because of their ability to modify the behavior of even the most disturbed patients, the antipsychotic, antianxiety, and antidepressant agents have greatly affected the management of the hospitalized mentally ill, enabling hospital staff to devote more of their attention to therapeutic efforts and enabling many patients to lead relatively normal lives outside of the hospital. A somewhat controversial application of psychopharmacology is "cosmetic psychiatry" Persons who do not meet criteria for any psychiatric disorder are nevertheless prescribed psychotropic medication. The antidepressant Wellbutrin is then prescribed to increase perceived energy levels and assertiveness while diminishing the need for sleep. The antihypertensive compound Inderal is sometimes chosen to eliminate the discomfort of day-to-day "normal" anxiety . Prozac in nondepressed people can produce a feeling of generalized well-being. Mirapex, a treatment for restless leg syndrome can dramatically increase libido in women. These and other off-label life-style applications of medications are not uncommon. Although occasionally reported in the medical literature no guidelines for such usage have been developed.

Peer-reviewed journals

, American Psychological Association
, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg

External links

— American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP)
— Advances in the History of Psychology, York University
York University

York University is a Public university research university located in Toronto, Ontario. It is Canada's third-largest university and has produced several of the country's top leaders across the humanities and in sciences such as chemistry, meteorology and space science....

Psychopharmacology

Historical overview

Psychopharmacological research

See also

Further reading

Peer-reviewed journals

External links