Molecular sites of anesthetic action in postsynaptic nicotinic membranes

Theories of general anesthesia have traditionally been based on correlations between potency and the properties of simple models such as apolar solvents, lipid bilayers and soluble proteins. However, mechanisms can now be determined directly by studying excitable proteins in their membrane environment. Stuart Forman and Keith Miller describe the physiological, biophysical and molecular biological evidence pointing to the location of a discrete allosteric site on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor at which local anesthetics act. General anesthetics, while superficially resembling local anesthetics in their actions on the receptor, do not appear to act upon such a site.