Phharmacology: The History And Development Of Pharmacology

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1. INTRODUCTION

Pharmacology is the science of drugs (from Greek pharmakos which means medicine or drug; and logos which means study). In actual use, it's meaning is limited to the study of how drugs and other substances affect our bodies. It has been defined as an experimental science which studies how substances that have entered our bodies affect our organism. The main tasks of pharmacologists are screening for desired activity, determining mode of action, and quantifying drug activity when chemical methods are not available.[1]

2. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT In the early 19thcentury, physiologists performed many pharmacologic studies. Pharmacology is held to have emerged as a separate science only when the first university chair was established. …show more content…

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
Psychopharmacology, also known as behavioral pharmacology, is the study of the effects of medication on the psyche, observing changed behaviors of the human body and mind, and how substances are manifested. It connects different approaches and various techniques from neuropharmacology, animal behavior and behavioral neuroscience.

Another goal of behavioral pharmacology is to develop animal behavioral models to screen chemical compounds with therapeutic potentials. Scientists who are studying this field typically use small animals to study psychotherapeutic drugs such as antipsychotics, antidepressants and anxiolytics, and drugs of abuse such as nicotine, cocaine, methamphetamine. [6]

4.4. MOLECULAR PHARMACOLOGY
Molecular pharmacology deals with the biochemical and biophysical characteristics of interactions between molecules of different substances and those of the cell. In other words, it is molecular biology applied to pharmacologic and toxicologic questions. The methods of molecular pharmacology include precise mathematical, physical, chemical and molecular biological techniques to understand how cells respond to hormones or pharmacologic agents, and how chemical structure correlates with biological activity of various

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