Walden University NURS 6630 week 2

Explain the agonist-to-antagonist spectrum of action of psychopharmacologic agents. To understand the agonist-to-antagonist spectrum of action of psychopharmacologic agents, it is first important to understand what does the terms agonist and antagonist means. An agonist refers to a chemical that binds to a receptor, the receptor activates and a biological response is produced. In comparison, an antagonist blocks the action of agonist, and an inverse agonist causes an action opposite to that of the agonist (Stahl, 2013). The agonist spectrum can be classified into four types namely agonist, partial agonist, antagonist and inverse agonist (Stahl, 2013). The agonist opens the channel the maximal amount and frequency allowed by the binding site, while antagonist that lie in the middle of the spectrum retain the resting state with infrequent opening of the channel. The inverse agonist put the ion channel into a closed and inactive state. Antagonists holds the ability to block anything in the agonist spectrum, and ions are returned to their resting state in each instance (Stahl, 2013). An agonist tie to a receptor site and causes a response while an antagonist works against the drug and blocks the receptor. An agonist stimulates the action, while antagonist sit idle, doing nothing (Stahl, 2013). For ideal therapeutic action of a drug, ion flow and signal transduction is required that is not too hot, neither too cold and has the right balance. Such an ideal state varies from one clinical case to another and depends upon the balance between agonism and silent antagonism