Drug Interactions and Toxins
Acute intoxication of rats with aldrin decreases chronaxie, whereas chronic exposure to this chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide has the reverse effect. Chronic exposure of rats to the closely related epoxide, dieldrin, has been suggested to reduce their muscular efficiency in performing a work exercise. Dieldrin is a chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide widely used in crop protection and preservation. Among the diverse symptoms resulting from intoxication are muscular twitching increasing in severity to epileptiform convulsions with loss of consciousness. Strychnine, which has a spinal locus of activity, causes tonic hind limb extension in mice, which is thought to be due to a removal of the effect of inhibitory interneurons on the nervous pathway to extensor muscles. Leptazol, on the other hand, produces a similar tonic extension by an excitatory action predominantly on cerebral structures. Diphenylhydantoin selectively elevated the threshold convulsive dose of leptazol but not that of strychnine hydrochloride, indicating an anticonvulsant activity on the nervous pathway between the predominant locus of activity of leptazol and the hind limbs.
Read more about this topic: Chronaxie
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