Clinical trials

Question 1

The dopamine hypothesis

Answer 1

Animals work in order to maximise their levels of dopamine which is why people relapse when taking drugs

Dopaminergic neurones in the Ventral tegumental area (VTA)
Increased dopaine release

Question 2

Flaws in the dopamine hypothesis

Answer 2

people often relapse years after they have been of drugs

Question 3

New hypothesis (tolerance)

Answer 3

Exposure to drugs leads tolerance (intake and reduced synthesis of receptors)
so more and more drug is needed to produce the same effect

Question 4

Addiction Treatments

Answer 4

Psychostimulant substitution

Psychological treatment e.g. CBT, motivational interviewing (most effective)

Microdosing psychedelics and ketamine (increases plasticity)

Question 5

modern drug discovery

Answer 5

target and lead compound identification

lead optimisation

Question 6

High throuput screening

Answer 6

engineer genes to contain a signal (e.g. luciferase and liminescense)

only active drugs will cause luciferase to light up

Question 7

Target polymorphism (Cancer)

Answer 7

Breast cancer
- HER2 tyrosine kinase receptor
- regulates anti-apoptotic mechanisms and cell proliferation
- overexpresion is linked to cancer

Question 8

Target polymorphism (Cystic Fibrosis)

Answer 8

Cystic fibrosis
- overproduction of thick mucus in lungs
- CFTR mutations
- deletion of phenylalanine (F508del defective folding and gating)
- mutation in glycine (G55ID shift channels to closed)

precision medicine can be used to target these faults

Question 9

Fututre of pharmacology

Answer 9

AI
- alpha fold for lead and target identification
Theragnostics
-
Personalised treatments
- CAR-T cells for cancer treatment

Question 10

Phase III gold standard

Answer 10

Randomised
Double blind