Research
This section is devoted primarily to detailed explanations of the ways in which behavioral psychologists and psychopharmacologists explore the interactions between drug actions and behavior in laboratory settings. The section begins with an overview article, Aims, Description, and Goals. The article Developing Medications to Treat Substance Abuse and Dependence ties basic research directly to clinical applications. The articles on Drugs as Discriminitive Stimuli; Measuring Effects of Drugs on Behavior; Measuring Effects of Drugs on Mood; and Motivation describe these general research techniques and concepts and their applicability to understanding drug abuses.
Research in the field of drug dependence, however, is much broader and more diverse than the topics included in this section. In fact, research is conducted on most of the topics contained in this encyclopedia—from epidemiological studies to new methods for detecting drug smuggling; from herbicides that can target specific plant sources of illicit drugs to how to target prevention messages to subgroups within the population; from how certain drugs produce their toxic effects to developing new drugs to reduce drug craving or prevent relapse; from how the interactions of environment and genetics make certain individuals more vulnerable to drug use to the relative effectiveness of different treatment programs.
