discover the biological sciences

Discover the Biological Sciences

The introductory information for this site has been contributed as a joint assignment by students in Bio. Sci. 10.

Microbiology - Pharmacology

By: Sarah Stender

Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the study of how drugs interact with living organisms to produce or change in function.

There are many, many, many sub-topics within the pharmacology discipline including behavioral pharmacology, cardiovascular pharmacology, neuropharmacology and veterinary pharmacology to name a few. Behavioral pharmacology is the study of how drugs affect our behavior. Cardiovascular pharmacology studies how drugs affect the heart. Neuropharmacology is how drugs affect the nervous system. Veterinary pharmacology is the study of the affect of drugs on animals. The list goes on and on.

The study of behavioral pharmacology is quite interesting. Behavioral pharmacologists deal a lot with drug abuse and treatments. This sub-field also helps the FDA in determining how to schedule certain drugs by the way they affect people. There are certain guidelines that must be met for a drug to be approved by the FDA and usually takes many years to get approval.

One interesting fact that was found out by researching this topic is that pharmacy is not related to pharmacology. Pharmacy deals with the dispensing, dosage, and proper usage of drugs. Both fields deal with drugs but their focus of study is completely different.

Websites that would provide more information are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacology,
http://www.aspet.org/public/pharmacology/about_pharmacology.html

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