PSYC62H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Mescaline, Monoamine Oxidase, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Document Summary
Drugs with almost identical molecular structures may induce entirely different effect, while other drugs whose molecular structures are quite different may induce almost identical effects. A drug may have multiple psychological effects in a certain dose range, and depending on the population taking them, some of these effects may be viewed as desirable in one person and undesirable in another. One classification scheme that appears to be intuitively reasonable involves grouping drugs according to their chemical structure. In many cases what appear to be relatively minor changes in the molecular structure of a drug can considerably change its basic activity in the body. The first is simply the structure of one of the basic neurotransmitters, dopamine. The second structure is that of amphetamine, the actions of certain doses of it are very similar to the actions of dopamine. This similarity is not surprising, because amphetamine has several biochemical actions that essentially amplify dopamine"s actions.
