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Drugs interfere with the way neurons send, receive, and process signals via neurotransmitters. Some drugs, such as marijuana and heroin, can activate neurons because their chemical structure mimics that of a natural neurotransmitter in the body.
Metabolism is the third stage of pharmacokinetics and involves the breakdown of a drug molecule. Excretion is the final stage of pharmacokinetics and refers to the process in which the body eliminates waste. Each of these stages is described separately in the following sections of this chapter.
‘How drugs work’ outlines the basic mechanisms of pharmacology. Drugs are chemicals that can be naturally occurring or man-made, and which can be administered in a variety of ways. They can act on receptors—often highly specific proteins in cells which can up-regulate or down-regulate processes—or on other targets, such as DNA or enzymes.
27 lut 2024 · Different factors can affect drug absorption; these factors can be classified as drug-specific and patient-specific. The percentage of drug absorption varies among different routes of administration, such as oral, subcutaneous (SQ), transdermal, intravenous (IV), and intramuscular (IM).
Drug metabolism is the metabolic breakdown of drugs by living organisms, usually through specialized enzymatic systems. More generally, xenobiotic metabolism (from the Greek xenos "stranger" and biotic "related to living beings") is the set of metabolic pathways that modify the chemical structure of xenobiotics, which are compounds foreign to ...
A drug must act on a site of action that is physiologically relevant to the effect. The drug recognizes and binds to that site, which may be an uptake pump, an enzyme or a receptor. The activation or inhibition of a specific site is termed the drugs mechanism of action.
6 wrz 2024 · Common addictive substances include alcohol, tobacco (nicotine), stimulants, hallucinogens, and opioids. Many of the effects of drug addiction are similar, no matter what substance someone uses. The following are some of the most common effects of drug addiction.
