Mechanisms of action

It is sometimes unknown how drugs work. Often it is possible to study gene expression in a model organism, and determine the genes that are inhibited by a certain substance, and make further inferences from this data. A classical example of an unknown mechanism of action is the mechanism of general anesthesia. Other examples are paracetamol, antidepressants and lithium. Even if a medication is known to affect a particular biological process, such as the reuptake of serotonin from the synapse to the axon terminal, it may still be unknown how that process affects subjective or observed…

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Source: Unsolved problems in medicine (CC BY-SA 4.0)