Cognitive Chronicles: Introduction to Neuropharmacology (July 2025) 

Introduction

While this blog covers the introduction to a rather meticulous field, it still needs a foundation to build upon, so consider this your introduction to the introduction of neuropharmacology. Neurology and pharmacology are two challenging fields, so when you combine them, you’re left with something even more difficult! To go over some brief etymology and background of both of these fields, neurology is the study of the nervous system. Neuron means "string" or "nerve" in Greek, and the suffix -logy means "study of" in Latin. On the other hand, pharmacology is the study of medications, supplements, and their effects on living organisms. It comes from the Greek word pharmako, meaning "drug," and then paired with “-logy”. Now, mix neurology and pharmacology, and you get neuropharmacology: the study of how medications affect the nervous system and neural mechanisms that influence our behavior. While neuropharmacology has two major branches, behavioral and molecular, for the sake of understanding, this blog will mainly focus on the molecular aspect because it is the foundation of this practice.

History

Neuropharmacology (and neuroscience in general) is a relatively new field that didn’t emerge until the early 20th century. Around this time, scientists had a basic understanding of human anatomy and physiology. The central nervous system (CNS)  and peripheral nervous system (PNS), as well as other neurological attributes like neurons, were not completely unstudied, but there was still uncharted territory, as there is now. At this time, scientists knew that certain compounds affected the human body, but there was still limited understanding. In the 1930s, French scientists used the compound phenothiazine to synthesize a medication that could be used to treat malaria. Though their efforts were futile, they found that the drug had sedative effects and could aid patients with Parkinson's disease. During this period, the majority of clinical trials were relying on the black box method. Though this method has frequent usage in computer science and engineering, in pharmaceutical sciences, the black box method is where the examiner (individual running the trial) administers a potential medication to a patient without knowledge of how the patient's body will react to the medication. This method was used until the late 1940s when scientists were able to identify specific neurotransmitters, namely GABA, but also norepinephrine (which constricts blood vessels and increases heart rate and blood pressure), dopamine, and serotonin. 

In 1949, the voltage clamp was invented by Kenneth Cole and George Marmont to study ion channels and nerve action potential, critical parts of how electrical signals move through nerve cells. Ion channels are tiny access points into a neuron’s membrane and are the site where charged particles move in and out of the cell. These movements across the channels are known as action potentials and create electrical signals. An action potential is a spike in voltage and occurs when the neuron’s inside becomes more positively charged (depolarization) and then returns to normal. The depolarization caused by the potential enables nearby neurons to also depolarize, allowing the signal to travel down the axon. A voltage clamp is a method of measuring ion currents through the membranes of excitable cells since it holds the neuron’s voltage stable. Since neurons are excitable cells, the voltage clamp was incredibly useful for neurologists at the time to understand the nervous system and investigate how chemicals or drugs impacted the nervous system.

Neurochemical Interactions

As mentioned earlier, neurons are excitable cells, meaning that the surface membrane of the cell has ion channels that allow particles to pass in and out of the cell. Chemical information is interpreted through dendrites, then through the perikaryon (or cell body), leading to the axon (talk-like part of the neuron), and then eventually passing on to other neurons through the axon terminal. Voltage-gated ion channels, which are proteins that form ion channels based on changes in a cell's electrical membrane potential, allow depolarization throughout the entirety of the cell. This depolarization could potentially cause an action potential that may travel down the axon.

 Once the action potential reaches the axon terminal, a plethora of calcium ions enter the cell. The calcium ions cause vesicles (tiny bubbles inside the neuron) filled with neurotransmitters (signaling molecules) to bind to the cell membrane and release the neurotransmitters into the synapse. Once the cell interacts with the neurotransmitters being released, it becomes a postsynaptic neuron. The postsynaptic neuron receives the neurotransmitters through special receptors. The two main types of these receptors are:

LGIC receptors are the fastest types of transduction from a chemical signal to an electrical signal. Once the neurotransmitter binds to them, they allow ions to flow directly through the cell. 

GPCRs are much slower than LGICs because they have a higher number of biochemical reactions that must take place intracellularly. The G protein is made up of three subunits: α, β, and γ. The binding of the neurotransmitter causes the Gα subunit to activate, which then exchanges GDP for GTP. This triggers the dissociation of the Gα subunit from the Gβγ dimer and the receptor. The dissociated subunits then interact with other proteins to continue the signal transduction cascade. 

So to summarize, the binding of a neurotransmitter to a GPCR can lead to many possibilities, but let’s cover the most common one next. 

Ion Channels Open

One of the most common outcomes is the production of cAMP, which is the result of an adenylyl cyclase pathway. It can bind to and activate cAMP-gated channels, which open ion channels. cAMP also activates PKA, which can phosphorylate proteins involved in neuron function, such as neurotransmitter synthesis, packaging, and release. PKA can also phosphorylate CREB, a transcription factor that can initiate gene transcription and protein synthesis.

Neuropharmacology’s Future & Conclusion

While this is just an introduction and has just touched on significant topics, there is still so much to be understood and studied. This field is relatively niche within the broader realm of neurology, which is why there is still a limited understanding of the complex aspects involved in this area. Our understanding of molecular compounds and our bodies is constantly growing and developing, which is why this is such an interesting and exciting field to explore! As of right now, the majority of labs studying this are in universities, namely Emory University and Vanderbilt University, where students are researching structure-activity relationships among other things.

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About the Author

Bella Abrahamsen is a 16-year-old writer from Texas with hopes of working as a neurologist or professor in neurology. She enjoys journalism, neurology, and psychology, and has her own psychology club at her school.