Chapter 1

Introduction to
Psychopharmacology

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Chapter Topics

• Psychopharmacology
• Why a book on psychopharmacology?
• Drugs: administered substances that alter
physiological functions
• Psychoactive drugs: described by manner of
use
• Generic names, trade names, and street
names for drugs
© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Chapter Topics (cont'd.)

• Drug effects: determined by dose

• Pharmacology: pharmacodynamics,
pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenetics
• Psychoactive drugs: objective and subjective
effects
• Study designs and the assessment of
psychoactive drugs

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Chapter Topics (cont'd.)

• Experimental validity: addressing the quality

and impact of an experiment
• Animals and advancing medical research
• The regulation of animal research
• From actions to effects: therapeutic drug
development

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Introduction

• Psychoactive substances have an enormous

impact on society
– Alcohol and tobacco use
– Prescription drugs for depression or anxiety
• Topics to be covered in this book:
– Major classes of psychoactive drugs
– Psychoactive drug actions in the body
– Psychoactive drug effects on behavior

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Psychopharmacology

• Psychopharmacology: study of how drugs

affect mood, perception, thinking, or behavior
• Psychoactive drugs: achieve the above effects
by acting in the nervous system
• A psychopharmacologist must know:
– How the nervous system functions
– How psychoactive drugs alter nervous system
functioning

© 2014 Cengage Learning

© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Why a Book on
Psychopharmacology?
• Psychoactive drug use is highly prevalent
• Nearly all of us are consumers of psychoactive
substances
• Psychoactive substances are important tools
for understanding human behavior
• Scientists, trained in psychology, test
psychoactive drugs and determine their
effectiveness for psychological disorders

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Drugs: Substances That Alter
Physiological Functions
• Drug: administered substance that alters
physiological functioning
– Definition has limitations
• Do not restrict the perception of a drug to a
specific form or usage
– Risk of excluding nonconforming substances

© 2014 Cengage Learning

© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Psychoactive Drugs: Described by
Manner of Use
• Instrumental use: drug use for the specific
purpose of a drug
– Use of alcohol to feel more relaxed
• Recreational use: drug use to experience the
effects of a drug
– Use of alcohol to feel its intoxicating effects
– May lead to misuse of drug, drug abuse, and/or
drug dependence

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Generic Names, Trade Names,
and Street Names for Drugs
• Trade name: developed for marketing the
drug
– Example: Tylenol
• Generic name: developed to describe a drug’s
chemical structure and similarity to other
drugs
– Example: acetaminophen
• Street names: used for recreational drugs
– Example: ecstasy
© 2014 Cengage Learning
© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Drug Effects: Determined by Dose

• Dose: ratio of amount of drug per body weight

• Dose-effect curve: level of drug effect by dose
• ED50 value: dose at which 50 percent of an
effect is observed
• Potency: amount of drug used to produce a
certain level of effect

© 2014 Cengage Learning

Figure 1.2
 Drug Effects: Determined by
Dose (cont'd.)
• During drug development, researchers must
determine a drug’s lethal dose
• LD50 is ED50 for lethality dose-response curves
• Therapeutic index: ratio of a drug’s lethal
dose-effect value relative to a therapeutic
dose-effect value
– LD50  ED50 = therapeutic index

© 2014 Cengage Learning

Figure 1.3
 Pharmacology: Pharmacodynamics,
Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacogenetics

• Pharmacodynamics: study of how drugs affect

biological actions
• Pharmacokinetics: study of how drugs pass
through the body
• Pharmacogenetics: study of how genetic
differences influence a drug’s pharmacokinetic
and pharmacodynamic effects

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Psychoactive Drugs: Objective
and Subjective Effects
• Objective effects: pharmacological effects that
can be directly observed by others
– Example: measuring an individual’s heart rate
• Subjective effects: pharmacological effects
that cannot be directly observed by others
– Example: asking study participants to describe a
drug’s effects

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Figure 1.4

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Study Designs and the Assessment
of Psychoactive Drugs
• Dependent variable: study variable measured
by a researcher
• Independent variable: study condition or
treatment that affects dependent variable
• Correlational study: independent variable is
not manipulated
• Experimental study: independent variable is
manipulated to determine if changes occur to
dependent variable
© 2014 Cengage Learning
© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Study Designs and the Assessment
of Psychoactive Drugs (cont'd.)
• Placebo: identical in appearance but
physiologically inert
• Treatment arms: number of treatments and
doses provided to patients
• Clinical study reports: detailed summaries of a
clinical study’s design and results

© 2014 Cengage Learning

Figure 1.5
 Study Designs and the Assessment
of Psychoactive Drugs (cont'd.)
• Single-blind procedure: researchers do not
inform study participants which treatment, or
placebo, they received
• Double-blind procedure: neither participant
nor investigator knows the treatment
assignments
• Open-label studies: disguising study
medications may have important ethical
consequences or can be impractical
© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Experimental Validity: Quality
and Impact of an Experiment
• Experimental validity: quality of procedures
• Internal validity: control of variables to
influence changes in dependent variable
• Without appropriately arranging conditions,
confound variables can cause changes to
dependent variable

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Experimental Validity: Quality and
Impact of an Experiment (cont'd.)
• External validity: do experimental findings
generalize beyond experimental conditions?
– Limitations of animal research: thalidomide

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Figure 1.6

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Experimental Validity: Quality and
Impact of an Experiment (cont'd.)
• Face validity: how much the model looks like
the disorder the researcher intends to study
• Construct validity: how well a study’s model
approximates a disorder
• Predictive validity: how well a model predicts
characteristics of a disorder

© 2014 Cengage Learning

© 2014 Cengage Learning
 Animals and Advancing Medical
Research
• Medical research relies heavily on animal
testing
– FDA requires animal testing
• Medical advances rely on animal research for
three major reasons:
– Lack of feasible alternatives
– High predictive value for human drug effects
– Allows assessment in controlled laboratory
environments
© 2014 Cengage Learning
 The Regulation of Animal
Research
• United States government agencies regulate
academic and industrial animal research
– U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Animal Welfare Act
– Public Health Service
• Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 The Regulation of Animal
Research (cont'd.)
• Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
(IACUC) oversees:
– Quality of animal housing
– Veterinary practices
– Research practices

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 The Regulation of Animal
Research (cont'd.)
• IACUC makes ethical judgments according to
“3 R’s:”
– Replacement
– Reduction
– Refinement
• Ethical cost: weighs value of potential
research discoveries against potential pain
and distress experienced by research animals

© 2014 Cengage Learning

Figure 1.7
 Animal Rights Activism

• Groups seeking complete cessation of animal

research
– People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
– Animal Liberation Front (ALF)
• Groups supporting animal research
– The Foundation for Biomedical Research
– The Pro-Test organization

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Figure 1.8

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Researchers Consider Many
Ethical Issues
• Informed consent: thorough understanding of
a study’s procedures, possible gains, and
potential risks
– Human participants can freely decide to enroll in a
study
– Animals lack capacity to provide informed consent
– Children and some mentally incapable adults lack
capacity to provide informed consent

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 Researchers Consider Many
Ethical Issues (cont'd.)
• Guidelines for ethical human research:
– Nuremberg Principles
– Declaration of Helsinki
– U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

© 2014 Cengage Learning

Figure 1.10

© 2014 Cengage Learning

 From Actions to Effects:
Therapeutic Drug Development
• Academic and government research
– Basic research and theoretical directions
• Pharmaceutical drug research
– Identify disorder
– Drug synthesis
– Biological experiments
– Refined screening
– Safety
– Clinical trials
© 2014 Cengage Learning
© 2014 Cengage Learning