Example: Atomoxetine is believed to increase norepinephrine in the brain, to treat ADHD. What do you mean, believed? Then how was it successfully developed to do that in the first place, if the mechanisms of action to effect that change are not known?
Apparently this is not uncommon in medication. How is this possible?
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Main goal is to have medication that works. Understanding how it works is nice, but not necessary. All we need to know are the side effects, and how common they are, as well as interactions with other drugs. Another useful bit of info is minimal dose that still treats the condition (since lower dose mean less side effects).
All of this info can be collected through experiments.
There is a lot of trial and error in the process, but benefits justify the costs.
Understanding how the drug works is useful as it help us find better drugs, ones that do similar thing, but more of it. But that understanding comes from lab experiments in a petri dish, and things that work in a petri dish might not work in the actual human, since living organism is complex and has many different chemicals and feedback loops.
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