Psychology 245: Drugs and Behavior
Unit 1 Study Questions--From Maisto, Galizio, & Connors (2015):
Chapter 1
1. Define the following: pharmacology, psychopharmacology, psychology, drug, psychoactive drug, drug abuse.
2. How are drugs classified?
3. What are the pharmacological and nonpharmacological factors that help us to understand the drug experience?
4. Consider recent findings from the National Household Survey. What drugs are mostly widely used and what sub-group differences are apparent? What issues might affect accuracy of drug surveys (see Box 1.2)?
5. What is polydrug abuse?
6. What are the estimated economic costs of drug and alcohol use?
7. Consider the 2013 DSM-V criteria for diagnosis of substance use disorder. What has changed in the move from DSM-IV to V? Note that the phenomenon of drug dependence or addiction is not defined in DSM-V; How does Rinaldi define psychological dependence?
8. What is drug tolerance? What is a withdrawal or abstinence syndrome?
9. What are some issues relating to drug information available on the internet? Use a search engine (e.g., Google) to find some drug-related web sites. Try to evaluate these sites using the criteria specified in Table 1-5.
Chapter 2
1. Consider the earliest forms of drug use. What drugs were the first to be used? How were drugs spread world-wide?2. What were the Opium Wars and who won them?
3. Consider drug use in early America. What was the soldier's disease?
4. What were the earliest drug laws in the US? Consider the San Francisco ordinance and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
5. What was the significance of the 1914 Harrison Act?
6. What were the effects of alcohol prohibition in the twenties?
7. What federal drug legislation was passed following the prohibition era?
8. Review in detail the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Note the criteria defining the five schedules of controlled substances, and note examples of drugs in the various schedules.
9. Consider the controversy surrounding drug testing in workplace and at home.
10. What are the "club" drugs?
11. What was the 1986 Analogue Enforcement Act designed to prevent?
12. What is the Single Convention?
13. What is the significance of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act?
14. What drugs were targeted by the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act?
Chapter 3
1. What is a neuron? Be able to identify its parts.
2. What is the synapse? What happens there?
3. In what sense is neural transmission an electrochemical event? Where is it electrical? Where chemical?
4. What is a neurotransmitter? A receptor site? Be able to trace the processes involved in neural transmission. Distinguish between ionotropic and metabotropic receptors.
5. How are neurotransmitters deactivated?
6. What are the major ways that drugs affect neural transmission?
7. What is an agonist? An antagonist?
8. What is acetylcholine? What does it do?
9. What are the three monamine neurotransmitters, and what are their functions? How do they relate to disorders like Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and depression?
10. What is the blood-brain barrier?
11. What is neurogenesis and how is it related to depression?
11. What are the endorphins? What is GABA? Glutamate? What drugs affect the neurotransmitter anandamide?
12. Consider the structure of the nervous system. Contrast the CNS and PNS. What are the two branches of the Autonomic nervous system? What is a sympathomimetic drug?
13. Be able to identify the function of the following: medulla oblongata, cerebellum, reticular activating system, thalamus, hypothalamus, mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway, hippocampus, substantia nigra, the lobes of the cerebral cortex.
14. How is brain damage assessed? Consider the various ways of imaging the brain.
Chapter 4
1. Differentiate pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
2. What are the steps of the drug experience?
3. How are drug doses determined by pharmacologists?
4. What are the major routes of drug administration? Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each?
5. How are drugs absorbed? Define bioavailability.
6. How are drugs distributed to sites of action? What factors influence this?
7. How are drugs eliminated from the body? Define half-life. How long after use can drugs be detected in urine?
6. What is a dose-effect (response) curve? What is meant by efficacy? Potency?
7. What is an ED50? An LD50? A therapeutic index?
8. Consider drug interactions. What is synergism (also called potentiation)? How else can drugs interact?
Chapter 5
1. What are some characteristics of the user that contribute to the nature of drug effects?
2. What is a placebo? What are placebo effects?
3. Contrast dispositional and functional tolerance. Contrast acute and protracted tolerance.
4. What is cross-tolerance? Behavioral tolerance? Reverse tolerance?
5. Consider the various explanations of tolerance.
6. What is a reinforcer? A punisher? How are these operant principles used to help understand drug dependence.
7. How and why are animals used in drug research? Consider particularly the self-administration, drug discrimination, and conflict procedures.
8. What ethical issues are raised in drug research with animals and humans?
9. What is a double-blind?
10. What steps must occur before a drug receives FDA approval and goes to market?
11. What is a chemical name? Brand name? Generic name? Why do consumers seem to prefer generic versions of prescription drugs?