CERTAIN ACTIONS OF CURARE ON THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

¹ Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven

1. Purified curare, d-tubocurarine chloride and ‘Intocostrin’ can, with rapid intravenous injection and in the absence of anesthetics or narcotics, induce central nervous system stimulation. There are clonic convulsions and the typical spike discharge in the electroencephalogram. This phenomenon can be prevented by central depressant drugs.

2. At markedly elevated dosage, curare causes an irreversible depression of the central nervous system. This depression is unaffected by anticurare agents but is reversed temporarily by pentamethylenetetrazol.

3. When synaptic transmission is measured in a ventral root following stimulation of the dorsal root, curare produces a block of internuncial neurone activity and finally the two-neurone arc discharges disappear.