Pharmacology
In an in vitro study in rat thalamic slices amobarbital worked by activating GABAA receptors, which decreased input resistance, depressed burst and tonic firing, especially in ventrobasal and intralaminar neurons, while at the same time increasing burst duration and mean conductance at individual chloride channels; this increased both the amplitude and decay time of inhibitory postsynaptic currents.
Amobarbital has been used in a study to inhibit mitochondrial electron transport in the rat heart.
A 1988 study found that amobarbital increases benzodiazepine receptor binding in vivo with less potency than secobarbital and pentobarbital (in descending order), but greater than phenobarbital and barbital (in descending order).
It has an LD50 in mice of 212 mg/kg s.c.
Read more about this topic: Amobarbital