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The duration of action of a drug is the length of time that particular drug is effective. [5] Duration of action is a function of several parameters including plasma half-life, the time to equilibrate between plasma and target compartments, and the off rate of the drug from its biological target. [6]
Onset of action is the duration of time it takes for a drug's effects to come to prominence upon administration. With oral administration , it typically ranges anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour, depending on the drug in question.
The action of drugs on the human body (or any other organism's body) is called pharmacodynamics, and the body's response to drugs is called pharmacokinetics. The drugs that enter an individual tend to stimulate certain receptors, ion channels, act on enzymes or transport proteins. As a result, they cause the human body to react in a specific way.
Pharmacokinetics (from Ancient Greek pharmakon "drug" and kinetikos "moving, putting in motion"; see chemical kinetics), sometimes abbreviated as PK, is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to describing how the body affects a specific substance after administration. [1]
[32] [33] In addition, unlike the case of peripheral administration, intranasal oxytocin has a central duration of at least 2.25 hours and as long as 4 hours. [34] [35] In likely relation to this fact, endogenous oxytocin concentrations in the brain have been found to be as much as 1000-fold higher than peripheral levels. [31]
Students of pharmacology must have a detailed working knowledge of aspects in physiology, pathology, and chemistry. They may also require knowledge of plants as sources of pharmacologically active compounds. [38] Modern pharmacology is interdisciplinary and involves biophysical and computational sciences, and analytical chemistry.
In pharmacology, the term mechanism of action (MOA) refers to the specific biochemical interaction through which a drug substance produces its pharmacological effect. [2] A mechanism of action usually includes mention of the specific molecular targets to which the drug binds, such as an enzyme or receptor . [ 3 ]
A mechanism of action of a chemical could be "binding to DNA" while its broader mode of action would be "transcriptional regulation". [3] However, there is no clear consensus and the term mode of action is also often used, especially in the study of pesticides, to describe molecular mechanisms such as action on specific nuclear receptors or ...