PP3252:03
Neuropharmacology
Townsville
36 lectures, 24 hours practicals. Second semester.
Staff: Dr A Nimmo, Assoc. Professor R Vink.
The pharmacology of the peripheral and central nervous systems. It examines neural communication as a target for drug intervention, and how drugs may be used to relieve pain, produce anaesthesia, regulate autonomic function, as well as control the symptoms of various neurological disorders. The subject also contains an introduction to behavioural pharmacology and the mechanisms of drug addiction.
Learning Objectives:
- normal neuronal function and the targets at which neuronal function may be modified by drugs;
- the neurobiology of pain and current strategies and future developments in the control of pain;
- the control of autonomic (vegetative) function and its modulation by drug treatments, e.g. the management of high blood pressure;
- current knowledge of the neurochemical basis of neurological disease and its treatment, e.g. the use of neuroleptics in the treatment of schizophrenia;
- approaches to studying behavioural pharmacology and its implications to therapeutic drug development as well as the understanding of addictive and other behaviour patterns.
Assessment by one three-hour examination (70%); written laboratory assignments (30%).