Basics of Psychopharmacology

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Function of nervous system
Basically designed to keep you alive
Essentially you can adapt to whatever environment you’re in and stay alive
Adapt to be able to do behaviors
Drugs have direct effect on NS
Synaptic transmission
Started out neuron centric until about 10 years ago
Basically looked at how drugs affect neurons and what role neurons play in behaviors
How neurons were communicating with other neurons or other cells in body
All drugs changed what was happening at synapse
Either mimic transmission or enhance it or decrease it
All focused on neurons and their communication
Psychopharm
Not just neurons involved in communication
Glial cells, astrocytes (enveloping synapses)
Used to think astrocytes and glial cells there to give neurons nutrients they need (facilitate them) and get rid of metabolites
Astrocytes play major role in communication in NS
Drugs affect glial cells…astrocytes that help with communication
Psychopharm
We produce new neurons so started looking for precursors for neurons
Thought oligodendrocyes were precursors
Cells in the CNS picture…maybe they’re precursors?
Maybe OPCs are not just precursors for new cells…also play role in neuron communication
Glial cells born throughout life and other NS cells we didn’t consider before
Not just astrocytes and oligondendrocytes
Now different types of these discovered
Oligos wrap axons in myelin but also prob do other stuff
Drugs effect all cells, not just neurons
Neuroplasticity
When NS receives info so it can produce behaviors so you can survive, this involves circuits (lots of neurons)
Behaviors made up of neuron circuits in which neurons are talking to each other
Circuits are plastic…always changing
Changes all the time when you do anything
NS constantly adapting and circuits changing
When we talk about how drugs affect NS, we have to think about a lot of factors
NS Review
Blood brain barrier…trick this to get drugs into NS
Divisions of NS
CNS
PNS