General anesthetics are essential to modern medicine, and yet a detailed understanding of
their mechanisms of action is lacking. General anesthetics were once believed to be ‘drugs …

Neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine and GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) mediate rapid
synaptic transmission by activating receptors belonging to the gene superfamily of ligand-gated …

Ethanol produces a wide variety of behavioral and physiological effects in the body, but exactly
how it acts to produce these effects is still poorly understood. Although ethanol was long …

The mechanisms of general anesthesia in the central nervous system are finally yielding to
molecular examination. As a result of research during the past several decades, a group of …

The GABAA receptor is an important target for a variety of general anesthetics (Franks and
Lieb, 1994) and for benzodiazepines such as diazepam. Specific point mutations in the …

Ligand-gated ion channels are a target for inhaled anesthetics and alcohols in the central
nervous system. The inhibitory strychnine-sensitive glycine and γ-aminobutyric acid type A …

Alcohols in the homologous series of n-alcohols increase in central nervous system
depressant potency with increasing chain length until a “cutoff” is reached, after which further …

A theory of anesthesia has been presented that suggests that the primary effect of anesthetic
agents is an alteration of the lateral phase separation behavior of nerve membranes (1). …

Despite its long history of use and abuse in human culture, the molecular basis for alcohol
action in the brain is poorly understood. The recent determination of the atomic-scale structure …

Alcohol dependence is a complex condition with clear genetic factors. Some of the leading
candidate genes code for subunits of the inhibitory GABA A and glycine receptors. These and …