Chapter 1 – How does the human nervous system function?

• You have to understand how the nervous system works, but you don’t have to learn all the details by hard. You have to understand the processes and the names of different areas (cell body, dendrites, axons).
• You must know how depolarization and hyper polarization work for example, but not the details of numbers or stuff like that.
• The different kinds of synapses, receptors and hormones are important and their function.

Chapter 2 – What is being studied in psychopharmacology?

• You have to know in what ways medication can be administered and some pros and cons of the different forms.
• What metabolism and tolerance is and the different forms of tolerance.
• What downregulation is.

Chapter 3 – What does the pharmacological approach to depression looks like?

• Don’t learn the diagnostic criteria of a disorder by hard, but you have to know some characteristics of the disorder.
• The monoamine hypothesis is very important.
• Different kinds of antidepressants and their pros and cons, but not the side effects in detail.

Chapter 4 – What does the pharmacological approach to anxiety looks like?

• In global, you have to know what happens in the brain when you feel anxious. But you don’t have to know what happens in each brain region and what it is called.
• You have to know the differences between a panic disorder and a generalized anxiety disorder and you must know what OCD and PTSD are.
• The different kinds of medicines to treat anxiety and some of their pros and cons.

Chapter 7 – What are the effects of opiate and sedation?

• What opiates are is important, but not the different kinds of receptors for opiates and where they are located. You only have to know that there are different kinds of receptors in different brain areas.
• Which treatments there are for opiates.

Chapter 8 – What changes in neurobiology in substance abuse and addiction?

• You have to understand the difference between an addiction and dependence.
• When you have a disorder and when you don’t and how this can be treated.
• The relationship between reward systems in the brain and drug reward systems.
• You have to know that there are changes in the brain because of drugs, but you don’t have to know this in detail. 
  

  Chapter 9 – What is the pharmacology of psychoactive drugs?

• You don’t have to remember the full process of producing cocaine or the other drugs explained in this chapter.
• You do have to know that there are multiple forms of it and you have to understand mechanisms of cocaine. The same is with the other drugs.

• Chapter 10 – What is the effect of alcohol on the body?

• It is important to know how the absorption and metabolism of alcohol works in global.
• The effects of alcohol on the body, including on neurotransmitter systems.
• The different kinds of tolerance and when someone is dependent of alcohol and treatment of that.