Psychopharmaceuticals: drugs that act on the brain

The psychotropic drugs they are one of the most influential tools in psychology and psychiatry, both in its intervention aspect and in research.

However, the fact that its commercialization and popularity have spread throughout much of the planet does not prevent a certain confusion about what a psychotropic drug really is.

What exactly are psychotropic drugs?

Psychotropic drugs are chemical substances that influence mental processes by acting on the nervous system.

However, it must be taken into account that there are many substances that directly or indirectly affect the neural networks of our body, and that is why the concept of a psychotropic drug has a lot to do with the type of effects that the substance has, its intensity and legal regulations that determine how and when its consumption should be.

Types of psychotropic drugs

Within the wide variety of psychotropic drugs that have been developed there is also a very wide range of functions. And it is that if the nervous system is capable of carrying out processes of all kinds, such as allowing decision-making or the regulation of states emotionally, the substances that influence these groups of neurons can also produce very varied effects depending on the type of psychotropic drug in the in question.

Although each class of substance has very specific effects, it does a classification of the types of psychotropic drugs can be established. These are the following:

1. Anxiolytics and sedatives

Anxiolytics are a class of psychotropic drugs that decrease the signs of anxiety and the agitation that is associated with it without actually producing drowsiness. Among the most important anxiolytics we find benzodiazepines.

Sedatives, on the other hand, do make the level of consciousness decrease. Both types of psychotropic drugs can be used as tranquilizers.

2. Mood stabilizers

This class of psychotropic drugs is used especially in mood disorders and the like, being the cases of Bipolar disorder the most typical.

3. Antipsychotics

Antipsychotics, also called neuroleptics, are a type of psychotropic drug whose effects are usually related to mitigating the effects of psychosis and the schizophrenia.

4. Antidepressants

Antidepressants are psychotropic drugs used especially in the treatments of major depressive disorders, and disorders related to difficulty in controlling certain impulses.

Among the types of antidepressants we find some such as MAOIs, SSRIs, tricyclic antidepressants.

How do psychotropic drugs work?

In general, the basic function of psychotropic drugs is to make certain neurons behave differently than they were acting. They do this by directly or indirectly influencing the way in which these nerve cells reuptake certain types of substances called neurotransmitters.

Thus, for example, a psychotropic drug can cause a certain class of neurons to stop taking up such a high amount of dopamine, which creates a chain reaction that makes the symptoms of a disorder improve.

Psychotropic drugs and their side effects

Psychotropic drugs are, at heart, a type of medication whose target is the Central Nervous System. However, that your "ideal" goal are very specific areas of the brain does not mean that these substances only have effects there.

Like all drugs, psychotropic drugs are not intelligent organisms, without sets of molecules that "fit" in some parts of the body and not in others. That means that they act on where they are supposed to act, but also on many other parts of the body. In other words, psychotropic drugs have side effects, many of which can be very negative.

The psychoactive drug in the fight against mental illness

Traditionally, psychotropic drugs have been medicine's response to cases of mental diseases. This partly means that its use is not intended to apply to healthy people, and it also means that its use Utilization has been a way to combat symptoms of disorders that were understood to have a cause in the individual.

However, there is currently a very intense debate about the way in which we should understand the mental disorders and, therefore, the way in which they should be treated by specialists in Health. This debate fully affects the use of psychotropic drugs, which in some cases can go from being the core of the treatment to becoming another complement in a type of approach to the problem that serves to intervene more in the context in which the person lives and not so much in the person as something isolated.

About this topic, you may be interested in this article: "The differences between syndrome, disorder and disease"