PROFESSOR CHARLES D. BLAHA

Director of the Division of Experimental Psychology

The major objective of this course is to provide you with knowledge to understand how drugs produce their effects. This course will provide students with an overview of behavioral pharmacology. We will cover major drugs of abuse, as well as drugs used to treat psychological disorders, their mechanisms of action, and their behavioral effects. By the end of this course, you should be knowledgeable of the different ways drugs are administered, factors that affect their absorption and distribution once they are in the body, as well as their metabolism and excretion. You will also learn how and where in the nervous system drugs produce their effects. By the end of this course, you should also be able to better understand and dissect information you may hear, read, or otherwise obtain regarding a given drug. Although not a prerequisite, some knowledge of biological concepts would be helpful to you.