01/31/14 Biomedical Therapies

• Psychopharmacology- The study of the effect of drugs on mind and behavior
• Anti-psychotic Drugs
• Class of medicines used to treat psychosis and other mental and emotional conditions.
• Used if suffer from hallucinations, agitations, and delusions.  
• Beginning to help schizophrenics with both positive and negative symptoms.
• Anti- Anxiety Drugs
• Includes drugs like Valium and Librium.
• Like alcohol, they depress nervous system activity.
• Most widely abused drugs.
• Anti-depression drugs
• Lift you up out of depression
• Most increase the neurotransmitter Nor-epinephrine.  
• Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft (Antidepressants)
• Work by blocking serotonin re uptake. 
• Electroconvulsive Therapy
• Biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.