Neuropharmacology

Neuropharmacology is the study of how drugs affect cellular function in the nervous system, and the neural mechanisms through which they influence behavior. There are two main branches of neuropharmacology: behavioral and molecular. Behavioral neuropharmacology focuses on the study of how drugs affect human behavior (neuropsychopharmacology), including the study of how drug dependence and addiction affect the human brain. Molecular neuropharmacology involves the study of neurons and their neurochemical interactions, with the overall goal of developing drugs that have beneficial effects on neurological function. Both of these fields are closely connected, since both are concerned with the interactions of neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, neurohormones, neuromodulators, enzymes, second messengers, co-transporters, ion channels, and receptor proteins in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Studying these interactions, researchers are developing drugs to treat many different neurological disorders, including pain, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, psychological disorders, addiction, and many others.

Neuropharmacology did not appear in the scientific field until, in the early part of the 20th century, scientists were able to figure out a basic understanding of the nervous system and how nerves communicate between one another. Before this discovery, there were drugs that had been found that demonstrated some type of influence on the nervous system. In the 1930s, French scientists began working with a compound called phenothiazine in the hope of synthesizing a drug that would be able to combat malaria. Though this drug showed very little hope in the use against malaria-infected individuals, it was found to have sedative effects along with what appeared to be beneficial effects toward patients with Parkinson’s disease. This black box method, wherein an investigator would administer a drug and examine the response without knowing how to relate drug action to patient response, was the main approach to this field, until, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, scientists were able to identify specific neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine (involved in the constriction of blood vessels and the increase in heart rate and blood pressure), dopamine (the chemical whose shortage is involved in Parkinson’s disease), and serotonin (soon to be recognized as deeply connected to depression). In the 1950s, scientists also became better able to measure levels of specific neurochemicals in the body and thus correlate these levels with behavior. The invention of the voltage clamp in 1949 allowed for the study of ion channels and the nerve action potential. These two major historical events in neuropharmacology allowed scientists not only to study how information is transferred from one neuron to another but also to study how a neuron processes this information within itself.

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