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Pharmacology · Chapter 5

Neurotransmitters & Drug Targets

Almost every psychiatric, antiepileptic, and anesthetic drug does one small thing at one small place in a synapse — it blocks a pump, blocks an enzyme, or sits on a receptor. Learn the six transmitters and their machinery and the drug classes stop being a list to memorize. Tap a transmitter, then tap a drug class to light up its target.

The synapse

Transmitter left in the synapse
Six transmitterstap one to begin
One synapse, six answersA drug can only reach a transmitter in a few places: the enzyme that makes it, the vesicle that stores it, the pump that takes it back, the enzyme that destroys it, or the receptor it lands on. Pick a transmitter to see its machinery.