Drugs and the Neuroscience of Behavior An Introduction to Psychopharmacology

"Drugs and the Neuroscience of Behavior: An Introduction to Psychopharmacology, fourth edition, provides broad coverage of the fundamental concepts and principles of psychopharmacology. The material is approachable for undergraduate students without a strong background in neuroscience and well suited for those in psychology and other disciplines in the behavioral and social sciences. The book covers how drugs are taken and travel through the body, their actions in the brain, and their many behavioral and physiological effects. The book begins with coverage of basic pharmacology and the nervous system to help us understand the use, actions, and effects of different classes of drugs in subsequent chapters. This approach facilitates a conceptual understanding of the effects of drugs we find in humans and animals. Along the way, students learn about the experimental techniques researchers use to study psychoactive drugs. The rapid advances in psychopharmacology make another edition of this book necessary. For example, at the time the third edition was written, psychedelic drugs for depression were mostly academic theory, but now we find ketamine an FDA-approved antidepressant with ketamine clinics open across the United States. At the time of writing the current edition, use of nicotine pouches has grown, psychedelics are commonly used in microdoses, and gabapentin is becoming a household name. We have many new treatments for mental disorders, most using novel pharmacological approaches. There is a lot to keep up on, and I continued to add current information, such as the FDA's declined approval of MDMA for PTSD or the approval of the novel antipsychotic drug xanomeline tropsium, right up until the production stage of the book. Beyond these updates, many other topics received expanded coverage, such as factors affecting a drug's passage through the blood-brain barrier or risk factors for substance use disorders. Thus, the revisions for this fourth edition are extensive"-- Provided by publisher.