Psychopharmacology is the study of the effects of drugs on behavior. Concerning the past, chemical substances which change behavior were derived from plants e.g. tea, opium, coffee, tobacco and cocaine. The categorizing and knowledge of the effects of these and more obscure drugs was passed on through families and religious elders. As such knowledge became formalized, folk medicine developed into formal scientific medicine. There are presently hundreds of psychoactive drugs in existence. These were discovered through reformalisation of centuries old applications, through systematic outgrowth as knowledge of brain-behavior relations extended or by accident.
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