Pleiotropy (drugs) can respond to them, because the endogenous ones are endocrine messengers. Pleiotropy (drugs) In pharmacology, pleiotropy includes all of a drug's actions other than those for which the agent was specifically developed. It may include adverse effects which are detrimental ones, but is often used to denote additional beneficial effects. For example, statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors that primarily act by decreasing cholesterol synthesis, but which are believed to have other beneficial effects, including acting as antioxidants and stabilizing atherosclerotic plaques. Steroid drugs, such as prednisone and prednisolone, have pleiotropic effects, including systemic ones, for the same reason that endogenous
Comedown (drugs) Comedown (drugs) Comedown or crashing is a phase of drug withdrawal that involves the deterioration in mood and energy that occurs when a psychoactive drug, typically a stimulant, clears from the blood. The improvement and deterioration of mood (euphoria and dysphoria) are represented in the cognitive schema as high and low elevations; thus, after the drug has "elevated" the mood (a state known as a high), there follows a period of "coming back down," which often has a distinct character from withdrawal in stimulants. Generally, a comedown ("down", "low", sometimes "crash") can happen to anyone as a transient symptom, but