What is the chemical difference of benzodiapines and barbituates? Also, how do they respectively affect the brain?
Answers:
Benzodiazepines are much safer and smaller number addictive. A benzo is a tranquilizer while a barbiturate is a sedative.
EDIT - A sedative and a tranquilizer are not exactly the same point. a tranquilizer is a drug that reduces anxiety but does not necessarily decrease awareness and wakefulness.
barbituates accomplishment directly to activate GABA a receptors,
benzodiazepines like diazepam, act contained by an allosteric mannor to the GABA a receptor, that is it fits on sites that affects how GABA binds to the GABA a receptor. Without GABA benzodiazepines don't do much.
Click the monograph of the individual benzodiazepine drug below and read the "mechanism of action" statement.
http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec15/ch196/ch… Source(s): Goodman and Gilman's Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, 11th edition gives detailed information on the subject.
Barbiturates are the old class of sedative/hypnotics. They have many medical uses such as treatment of insomnia, anti-anxiety, anticonvulsants, anesthesia. But most of these are treated beside benzo's.
When benzodiazepines (benzo's) were invented by Dr. Sternbach barbiturates quickly fell out of main stream use.
Now barbiturates are used not often. Some very fast acting barbiturates like Sodium thiopental are used to induce nippy sedation and anesthesia. Phenobarbital is still used when first line anticonvulsants do not work for epileptics and it is used for alcohol, barbiturate, and benzodiazepine detox. Phenobarb is sometimes used in a 'rapid' detox. But this is highly controversial and considered to be wrong by many- due to the fact that if it is not done correctly it can be a very painful process.
But barbiturates exterminate. A major UK study ranking the 20 most dangerous drugs ranked barbiturates at #3 (heroin be first, cocaine was second). This is because a barbiturate overdose is often fatal and no "antidote" is available. In certainty I remember that the first episode of 'ER' involved a suicide attempt with barbiturates. And the writers were planning on killing the role but decided not to because of her popularity. A benzodiazepine OD is almost never lethal (unless taken with other drugs). Most benzo's require 500 even 2,000 times a commonplace dose to be lethal. So benzo's are considered to be one of the safest (if not the safest) drug to OD on. Benzo's also have the drug flumazenil, a bezo antagonist that will reverse the effects of benzo's. But using flumazenil in an OD is almost never needed an it poses a risk of inducing tremor.
Benzodiazepines require the GABA molecule for it to work. Barbiturates do not. So barbiturates can simply increase and increase without relying on other chemicals. Barbiturates also are glutamatergic (stimulant) antagonists. So barbiturates not only have inhibitory effects via GABAa receptors but they also fall the stimulating effects of the body. So barbiturates reduce the bodys stimulation and increase its inhibition. Benzo's do not interact with glutamate. This is part of the purpose why barbiturates are more sedating.
Both drugs have a very large rate of physical dependence (that is not addiction). So bill from long term use of either drug can be fatal and at the tiniest excruciatingly painful.
Barbiturates are still 'good' drugs but only under unusual situations as a concluding resort or for hospital only use. But benzo's are better. They are abused but typically with other drugs (polysubstance) abuse.
If you could find a account of celebrity's who did from drug OD's you would find many who took barbiturates (often with alcohol) and died. Source(s): I am a medical student with a specialist scope (Hons. BSc) in Pharmacology with a focus on psychopharmacology with special focus on benzodiazepines and other CNS depressants. I hold interned under two psychiatrists and one neurologist. In addition I have worked as a pharmacy assistant.
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