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Pharmacy & Pharmacology vocabulary · Pharmacodynamics and Drug Action

Pharmacodynamics

Meaning in pharmacy & pharmacology, with examples

/ˌfɑrməkoʊdaɪˈnæmɪks/nounCommon term

In pharmacy & pharmacology, pharmacodynamics means: The study of what a drug does to the body: how it produces its effects, which receptors or targets it acts on and how the effect changes with the dose.

In Turkish: farmakodinamik

How it is used

Often shortened to PD and paired with PK in 'PK/PD'. Key ideas include receptors, agonists and antagonists, efficacy, potency and dose-response curves. A pharmacodynamic interaction happens when two drugs have similar or opposite effects, for example two sedating medicines taken together.

Example sentences

  1. Pharmacodynamics helps explain why older patients can be more sensitive to sedatives.

  2. Today's lecture covers the pharmacodynamics of opioids.

Common collocations

  • pharmacodynamics of a drug
  • PK/PD
  • pharmacodynamic interaction
  • pharmacodynamic effect
  • pharmacokineticsThe study of what the body does to a drug: how it is absorbed, distributed, metabolised and eliminated, and how its level in the blood changes over time.
  • receptorA protein on or inside a cell that a drug or a natural substance such as a hormone binds to, starting a change in how the cell works.
  • mechanism of actionThe specific way a drug produces its effect in the body, such as blocking an enzyme, activating a receptor or stopping bacteria from building cell walls.
  • efficacyThe ability of a drug to produce the wanted effect; in pharmacology, the maximum effect a drug can produce, however high the dose.
  • potencyThe amount of a drug needed to produce a given effect; a highly potent drug works at a very small dose.

More terms: Pharmacodynamics and Drug Action

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