ABSTRACT
The profusion of studies using operant techniques that followed led to the emergence of several journals to accommodate the burgeoning literature. A common feature of the operant approach to behavioral pharmacology involves the intensive study of a single individual subject. Behavioral pharmacology, which has grown out of the integration of experimental psychology and pharmacology, is concerned with the behavioral actions of drugs. A drug can occasionally be found which has a certain main effect without seriously disrupting secondary effects. The classical case for CNS drugs is the barbiturate structure. The amount of drug at the site of action determines the effect produced. Drugs tend to move from sites of high concentration to areas of lower drug concentration. Some drugs, such as the inhalant anesthetics, are excreted from the body in unchanged forms. Motivational variables have long been a major focus of many investigators in psychopharmacology.
