Sarmazenil (Ro15-3505) is a drug from the

benzodiazepine Benzodiazepines (BZD, BDZ, BZs), sometimes called "benzos", are a class of depressant drugs whose core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring. They are prescribed to treat conditions such as anxiety disorders, ...

family. It acts as a partial

inverse agonist In pharmacology, an inverse agonist is a drug that binds to the same receptor as an agonist but induces a pharmacological response opposite to that of the agonist. A neutral antagonist has no activity in the absence of an agonist or inverse ag ...

benzodiazepine receptor The GABAA receptor (GABAAR) is an ionotropic receptor and ligand-gated ion channel. Its endogenous ligand is γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Upon opening, the GABAA receptor on ...

s, meaning that it causes the opposite effects to most benzodiazepine drugs, and instead acts as an

anxiogenic An anxiogenic or panicogenic substance is one that causes anxiety. This effect is in contrast to anxiolytic agents, which inhibits anxiety. Together these categories of psychoactive compounds may be referred to as anxiotropic compounds. Anxiogeni ...

and

convulsant A convulsant is a drug which induces convulsions and/or epileptic seizures, the opposite of an anticonvulsant. These drugs generally act as stimulants at low doses, but are not used for this purpose due to the risk of convulsions and consequent exci ...

. It is used in

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutri ...

to reverse the effects of benzodiazepine sedative drugs in order to rapidly re-awaken anesthetized animals.

References

Anxiogenics Carboxylate esters Chloroarenes Convulsants Ethyl esters GABAA receptor negative allosteric modulators Imidazobenzodiazepines Lactams {{nervous-system-drug-stub

See also

References