Landau E M, Richter J, Cohen S
J Med Chem. 1979 Mar;22(3):325-7. doi: 10.1021/jm00189a023.
We studied the effect of four volatile anesthetics and convulsants on the GABA- and glutamate-induced conductance change in crab muscle. The intensity of drug action correlated with the solubility parameter (delta) values of the four drugs. Thus, the higher that value was for a given drug, the stronger was its effect on the glutamate response but the weaker was it on the response to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). We suggest that different gating molecules are housed in specific subregions of the membrane, each characterized by a particular value of the solubility parameter. The differential distribution of drugs in these subregions may be a nonsteric mechanism for drug specificity.