Researchers observe the effects of drugs on arterial pressure, blood flow in specific vascular beds, release of physiological mediators, and on neural activity arising from central nervous system structures. Molecular pharmacology deals with the biochemical and biophysical characteristics of interactions between drug molecules and those of the cell. It is molecular biology applied to pharmacologic and toxicologic questions. The methods of molecular pharmacology include precise mathematical, physical, chemical and molecular biological techniques to understand how cells respond to hormones or pharmacologic agents, and how chemical structure correlates with biological activity. The biochemical pharmacologist uses drugs as probes to discover new information about biosynthetic pathways and their kinetics, and investigates how drugs can correct the biochemical abnormalities that are responsible for human illness.
Behavioral pharmacology studies the effects of drugs on behavior.
Research includes topics such as the effects of psychoactive drugs on the phenomena of learning, memory, wakefulness, sleep, and drug addiction, and the behavioral consequences of experimental intervention in enzyme activity and brain neurotransmitter levels and metabolism. Endocrine pharmacology is the study of actions of drugs that are either hormones or hormone derivatives, or drugs that may modify the actions of normally secreted hormones. Endocrine pharmacologists are involved in solving mysteries concerning the nature and control of diseases of metabolic origin. Clinical pharmacology is the study of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics in human beings. Clinical pharmacologists study how drugs work, how they interact with other drugs, how their effects can alter the disease process, and how disease can alter their effects.