Basic neuropharmacology can be defined as the study of the actions and mechanisms of action of drugs on the nervous system. In a broad sense, efforts toward the elucidation of mechanisms of neurotropic drugs action depend for their success upon the growing sophistication of theory and methodology in neurobiology. At present, basic information about the action of drugs at multicellular, cellular, subcellular, microchemical, and molecular levels is approaching the point where we can soon expect a coherent and highly specific analysis of the mode of action of almost every major drug of interest to psychiatry. These promising developments hopefully will lead to a rational pharmacotherapy in the future. (45 pp.)