Organophosphorous compounds have been employed as pesticides and chemical warfare nerve agents. Toxicity of organophosphorous compounds is a result of excessive cholinergic stimulation through inhibition of acetyl cholinesterase. Clinical manifestations include cholinergic syndromes, central nervous system and cardiovascular disorders. Organophosphorous pesticide poisonings are common in develo...

Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are compounds that can be detected in human populations as a result of occupational or residential exposure. Despite their occurrence in considerably low levels in humans, their biological effects are hazardous since they interact with enzymes, proteins, receptors and transcription factors. The mechanism of OP poisoning involves inhibition of acetylcholinesteras...

Organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents are deadly chemical weapons that pose an alarming threat to military and civilian populations. The irreversible inhibition of the critical cholinergic degradative enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) by OP nerve agents leads to cholinergic crisis. Resulting excessive synaptic acetylcholine levels leads to status epilepticus that, in turn, results in brain damage...

The development of drugs for the treatment of disorders of cognition has benefited from a more precise knowledge of the loss of specific neural pathways associated with certain neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The loss of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons in AD has engendered the development of new compounds that target various aspects of the cholinergic system. Ho...

Dementia associated with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common types of dementia. Patients with AD often have cholinergic deficits in association with the disease. The cholinesterase inhibitors donepezil hydrochloride, galantamine hydrobromide, and rivastigmine tartrate are the current mainstays of symptomatic treatment for patients with AD. In clinical trials for all thre...

We studied the role of the anticholinergic properties of disopyramide and quinidine in mediating the electrophysiological effects of these agents on isolated cardiac tissue. In right atria, disopyramide, quinidine, and procainamide administered alone elicited negative chronotropic responses. However, after cholinergic stimulation with physostigmine (1 X 10" M), disopyramide and quinidine produc...

We studied the role of the anticholinergic properties of disopyramide and quinidine in mediating the electrophysiological effects of these agents on isolated cardiac tissue. In right atria, disopyramide, quinidine, and procainamide administered alone elicited negative chronotropic responses. However, after cholinergic stimulation with physostigmine (1 X 10" M), disopyramide and quinidine produc...

The effect of cholinergic blockade on suppressed growth hormone (GH) secretion caused by feeding or the intraruminal infusion of an acetate, propionate, and butyrate mixture (107 and 214 μmol ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ min-1over 6 h) was examined in ovariectomized ewes. Intraruminal infusion at the rate of 107 μmol ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ min-1increased peripheral plasma short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations to approxim...

Secretion of cerebrospinal fluid by the choroid plexus can be inhibited by its cholinergic innervation. We demonstrated that carbachol inhibits the Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase in bovine choroid tissue slices and investigated the mechanism. Many of the actions of cholinergic agents are mediated by nitric oxide (NO), which plays important roles in fluid homeostasis. The inhibition of Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase was ...

Gait disorders and postural instability, which are commonly observed in elderly patients with Parkinson disease (PD), respond poorly to dopaminergic agents used to treat other parkinsonian symptoms. The brain structures underlying gait disorders and falls in PD and aging remain to be characterized. Using functional MRI in healthy human subjects, we have shown here that activity of the mesenceph...