Designer drugs mental effects

It follows from all issues discussed in Section 2 that, as we progress in our scientific explorations and creations, the dimensions opened by the new science of complexity will unavoidably become part of our mental universe. This will affect not only the way scientists interpret their results, but above all the way experiments are designed and planned in our reality, both physical and virtual. How complexity and emergent properties can effect drug research is examined, sometimes provocatively, in Section 3. 

Nowhere are these transitions more apparent than in the design of three important studies sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. One—the STAR D study—is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. The other two, the CATIE study and the STEP-BD study, are reviewed briefly here as an illustration of current trends in psychiatric research. These three studies break new ground in the sense that they go beyond the concept of efficacy that is established in the industry-sponsored studies The drug is shown to be efficacious for a certain disorder, but in the real world, will physicians prescribe it and will patients take it and stay on it The answer to these questions centers on the concept of effectiveness. An effective drug is one that not only has efficacy against a certain malady but also is accepted by patients because its safety, tolerability, mode and frequency of administration, price, taste, appearance, and so on. These issues are commonly left unexamined in the classic drug trials. 

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