THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
FACULTY OF MEDICINE, DENTISTRY AND HEALTH SCIENCES

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROPHARMACOLOGY
Credit: 6 points Availability: Semester 1
Included in: Undergraduate Handbook

INTRODUCTION: This is a unit taught by the School of Medicine and Pharmacology which covers clinical and genetic aspects of psychiatric illnesses, psychopharmacological aspects of psychiatric illness, cellular and molecular mechanisms of nervous system drugs. Laboratories cover stereotaxic neurosurgical procedures and psychopharmacological assessments of brain injury.

Outcomes: Students will understand the cellular, molecular and/or genetic principles relevant to pharmacological therapeutic issues of selected psychiatric disorders. Basic characteristics of drug-CNS interactions will be learned, and then applied to major affective disorders, schizophrenia, addiction and anxiety disorders. Practical experience will be gained in specific brain region neurotoxic presynaptic terminal lesioning and the subsequent behavioural effects of drugs that act presynaptically and postsynaptically, as an illustration of

1) alteration of drug effects as a consequence of brain damage,

2) recovery and compensation processes available to the CNS,

3) methods of localisation of brain function, drug administration and neurologic assessment in an animal model of Parkinson’s Disease.

Content: This unit describes how complex phenomenological and behavioural dysfunctions, such as schizophrenia and major affective disorder, are produced by abnormalities of brain function. The lectures go into detail on system, cellular, molecular and genetic mechanisms of selected psychiatric disorders and the therapeutic action of medications for those disorders. Laboratories cover stereotaxic surgical procedures for localisation of drug effects on behaviour to specific brain regions.

Assessment: This comprises a written examination (55 per cent) and a laboratory report (45 per cent) due two weeks following the Friday of the week of the relevant laboratory, or of the last laboratory in a series.

Unit co-ordinator(s): Associate Professor Mathew Martin-Iverson
Location: UWA (Crawley, QEII Medical Centre)
Mode of offering: on-campus

Unit rules:
Prerequisite: PHYL2245 Physiology of Cells. PHAR2210 Principles of Pharmacology is strongly recommended
Co-requisites: Advisable prior study: First year Psychology
Incompatibility:
Approved quota:
Contact hours: lectures: 2 hrs per week; labs: 4 hrs per week x 6 weeks
Unit web page: Available only to enrolled students.
Notes: This unit is normally available only to students enrolled in the Bachelor of Science (Neuroscience).
________________________________________________________________

A/Prof Mathew T. Martin-Iverson, B.Sc., Ph.D. (Neurological Sciences),
Pharmacology Unit, School of Medicine and Pharmacology,
Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Australia,
and
Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry,
Graylands Hospital

MAILING ADDRESS:
CCRN, Graylands Hospital,
Private Bag #1,
Claremont WA 6910, Australia

Email
(work): Mathew.Martin-Iverson@.uwa.edu.au or matt@ccrn.uwa.edu.au
(home): martiniverson@ozemail.com.au
CCRN office: Phone(618) 9347-6443. FAX (618) 9384-5128.
Pharmacology lab: (618) 9346-2350

NEUROSCIENCE WEBSITE: http://www.neuroscience.uwa.edu.au/
CCRN WEBSITE: http://www.ccrn.uwa.edu.au/