Drugs and the Brain
Pharmacology and neuroscience meet in this MIT Experimental Study Group course on how drugs act on the brain. Lessons interleave basic concepts with concrete examples: what a neurotransmitter is, illustrated through the mechanism of caffeine, followed by how nerve gases like sarin and their antidotes work at the synapse. The course covers neurotransmitter systems, receptor mechanisms, and brain diseases including addiction and schizophrenia, tying each to specific drugs from Abilify to Zyrtec. Beyond straight pharmacology, sessions bring in patent law, medical ethics, the history of drug discovery, and even the physics of crack pipes, treating the subject as genuinely multidisciplinary rather than a list of drug names to memorize. Materials come from MIT OpenCourseWare and include lecture notes and course structure suited to self study, free of charge, with no certificate offered.