Many drugs have important behavioral actions.
One such behavioral action is drug addiction. Drug addiction results from the interactions between an individuals ongoing and past behavior and the pharmacological actions of a drug. The behavioral pharmacology of drug addiction aims at understanding these interactions. Thus, behavioral pharmacology aims to understand how drugs affect behavior, understand how behavior affects drug action, and understand the pharmacological mechanism of these actions. Developing these understandings is fundamental to understanding the behavioral biology of drug addiction and to developing new and more effective treatments of drug addiction.