Monday, April 24, 2006

New Scientist News - All the pleasures of alcohol, with no downsides

New Scientist News - All the pleasures of alcohol, with no downsides: "In fact such 'partial agonists' of GABA-A receptors already exist in the form of bretazenil and pagoclone, which were developed as anti-anxiety drugs but never commercialised. These molecules also have the advantage of being instantly reversible by the drug flumazenil, which is used as an antidote to overdoses of tranquillisers such as Valium. Alcohol also inhibits NMDA receptors, which are part of a general excitatory signalling circuit, so a second ingredient of the alcohol substitute would be an NMDA antagonist such as dizoclipine, originally developed as a drug for stroke."

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