The course is divided in two parts. The first part is aimed to describe general principles of pharmacology and the effects of some classes of drugs while in the second part several groups of active principles from medicinal plants are discussed.
The general pharmacology is addressed to supply students with the basic knowledge of the effects of xenobiotics in the body treating also the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic factors that might influence their variability among subjects. Moreover, the pharmacology relative to different neurotransmitters and autacoid mediators systems with the effects deriving from drugs acting on their receptors will be treated.
The second part of the course is aimed to describe the therapeutic activity of active principles of medicinal plants; in detail, the mechanism of action of each drug is explained, the possible interaction with specific membrane receptors or their subtypes or other targets that affect cellular responsiveness such as ion channels, second messengers, nuclear receptors etc. The pharmacokinetic aspects of the therapeutic agents are described, their variability in relation to the dose and route of administration and the different employment in acute or chronic diseases. Finally, drug side effects or toxicity are described together with possible pharmacodynamic or pharmacokinetic interactions with other active principles.