Fundamentals of Psychopharmacology is a very good primer on how drugs affect the brain at both the behavioral and chemical levels. The material is intended for academic readers with a background in chemistry, cell biology, and neuroscience. While its style is fluid and easy to read, the content is intended for upper-level undergraduate students who are just being introduced into the field of psychopharmacology. Additionally, while the sections cover only the fundamentals of drug interactions, it is comprehensive: The author makes sure to include relevant background information and covers the introductory material to its fullest extent. Within a chapter, the reader can expect to be introduced to drug history, relevant biological mechanisms, important experiments surrounding the drug discovery, and pharmacokinetic and molecular mechanisms of the drug.

The elementary nature of the figures and supplementary material make this book ill-equipped as a scientific reference, but this does necessarily speak to the book’s detriment. While the figures are too simple (enough for a second-year undergraduate to understand), they are also clear and descriptive. Figures range from pictorial representations of drug-cell relationships to chemical structures (which constitute half of the figures in the book). Additionally, the appendices are very brief; some appendices are “Names of Psychotropic Drugs,” and “Some Important Drug Interactions.” One useful appendix, however, is the “Key References for Future Reading,” which is a list of all the publications cited throughout the book, categorized by chapters.

There are 18 chapters, the middle and integral 7 of which cover drug treatment of depression, mania, anxiety disorders, insomnia, schizophrenia, epilepsies, and Parkinson’s disease. In these chapters, the general organization follows a clear logical progression from an introduction to the disease/disorder, followed by background information on how the disorder can be relieved by a drugs, and then a list of drugs along with their mechanisms, properties, efficacy, side-effects, and any long-term cognitive changes. For example, the chapter titled “Drug Treatment of Depression” contains the following subsections: Historical Development of Antidepressants, Biochemical Basis of Depression, Drugs Used in Treatment of Depression, Second Generation Antidepressants, Modification of Amine Modulation Hypothesis of Antidepressant Action, Electroconvulsive Shock Treatment, Adverse Effects of Antidepressants, and Treatment Resistant Depression. This chapter spans 30 pages of 500-word pages.

This book contains other chapters that are useful for instructing the reader on relevant background information for the “drug treatment” chapters. The earlier chapters of this book include: Functional Neuroanatomy, Neurotransmitter Function, and Molecular Genetics. These chapters contain information typically taught in an undergraduate biology and neurobiology class. In fact, they would be excellent supplementary reading material to any neurobiology class, as it lightly (yet thoroughly) covers the basic mechanisms underlying neurobiology. The other chapters near the end cover other interesting topics surrounding psychopharmacology, like drug abuse, pediatric vs. geriatric psychopharmacology, and other treatment strategies.

One really interesting chapter contains information on psychoneuroimmunology, which suggests that the mind can induce immune responses in the system. This chapter contains a brief, 3-page introduction to basic structure of the immune system, highlighting the basic functions of lymphocytes and cytokines. The chapter then discusses the roles that the brain plays in mediating immune responses, including enduring changes that occur due to habit or mental proclivities. Correlations between depression and suppressed immune function have been found, and consequentially, immune activity can be used as a biological marker of depression.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to any psychology majors who have a strong biological background. It is written in a style that is easy enough to read that it could be considered “light” reading. Without hesitation, I would recommend this book be read from cover to cover. Unfortunately, however, this book is relatively outdated considering the recent surge of advances in drug design and psychopharmacology. This book, having been written in 1997, is bereft of nearly 15 years of research, during which time the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology have matured indefinitely. As with all scientific literature, the veracity of this book should not be taken as an absolute authority, but rather as “current best guesses” in psychopharmacology.