Poisoning
TTX is extremely toxic. The toxin can enter the body by ingestion, injection, inhalation and through abraded skin. The mechanism of toxicity is through the blockage of fast voltage-gated sodium channels. These are required for the normal transmission of signals between the body and brain, as a result, TTX causes paralysis of voluntary muscles (including the diaphragm, stopping breathing), the loss of vagal regulation of heart rate (causing it to increase to around 100bpm), and loss of sensation.
TTX is roughly 100 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide. Fish poisoning by consumption of members of the order Tetraodontiformes is extremely serious. The organs (e.g. liver) of the pufferfish can contain levels of tetrodotoxin sufficient to produce paralysis of the diaphragm and, through this mechanism, death due to respiratory failure. Toxicity varies between species and at different seasons and geographic localities, and the flesh of many pufferfish may not be dangerously toxic. It is not always fatal; but at near-lethal doses, it can leave a person in a state of near-death for several days, while the person remains conscious. For this reason, TTX has been alleged an ingredient in Haitian Vodou and the closest approximation of zombieism, an idea popularized by Harvard-trained ethnobotanist Wade Davis in a 1983 paper, and in his 1985 book, The Serpent and the Rainbow. This idea was dismissed by the scientific community in the 1980s, as the descriptions of voodoo zombies do not match the symptoms displayed by victims of tetrodotoxin poisoning, and the alleged incidents of zombies created in this manner could not be substantiated.
Read more about this topic: Tetrodotoxin
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