title: Psychostimulants: Basic and Clinical Pharmacology.
abstract: Substance use disorder, and particularly psychostimulant use disorder, has considerable socioeconomic burden globally. The psychostimulants include several chemical classes, being derivatives of benzoylecgonine, phenethylamine, phenylpropanolamine, or aminoaryloxazoline. Psychostimulant drugs activate the brain reward pathways of the mesoaccumbal system, and continued use leads to persistent neuroplastic and dysfunctional changes of a variety of structures involved in learning and memory, habit-forming learning, salience attribution, and inhibitory control. There are a variety of neurochemical and neurobehavioral changes in psychostimulant addiction, for example, dopaminergic, glutamatergic, serotonergic (5-HT-ergic), and γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) changes have all noted. In this chapter, we will review pharmacological changes associated with psychostimulant use and abuse in humans and animals, and on the basis of the best characterized and most widely abused psychostimulants (amphetamines, cocaine) discuss why use transitions into abuse and review basic science and clinical strategies that might assist in treating psychostimulant abuse.
authors.affiliation: Brains On-Line, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Andrew C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: McCreary
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Drug Addiction Pharmacology, Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland; Department of Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Electronic address: mal.fil@if-pan.krakow.pl.
authors.forename: Małgorzata
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Filip
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants
keywords: Abuse; Clinical trials; Pharmacological properties; Preclinical targets; Psychostimulant chemical classes; Treatment