Name this chemical!

April 10, 2007 8:47 PM

Name this chemical!

Someone given this drug would essentially be paralyzed, yet conscious and still able to feel pain. I believe it was used on animals at one point.

posted by frankie_stubbs to science & nature (16 comments total)

Special K?
posted by phaedon at 8:58 PM on April 10, 2007

Curare or curane. Suport breathing.
posted by longsleeves at 9:01 PM on April 10, 2007

Support
posted by longsleeves at 9:02 PM on April 10, 2007

Blue-ringed octopus venom does that, specifically the tetrodotoxin component.
posted by mendel at 9:03 PM on April 10, 2007

Scopalomine would do what you're saying, if you consider "lost in a fugue state unable to differentiate between hallucination and reality" as "conscious".
posted by Netzapper at 9:04 PM on April 10, 2007

Succinylcholine or one of the curare compounds (Rocuronium, pancuronium) are what we use in the ER to induce paralysis. We give other agents to sedate the person and provide pain relief.
posted by gramcracker at 9:14 PM on April 10, 2007

You're probably thinking of curare. What it does is to paralyze voluntary muscles. The reason it's particularly dangerous is that the diaphragm is one of the muscles it paralyzes, which is why, as longsleeves says, a respirator is necessary if you don't want the subject to die.

It was originally discovered by tribes living in the Amazon jungle, who use it as a blowgun dart poison to hunt monkeys and sloths and similar sized creatures. Modern medicine adopted it in order to use it during surgery, because without some sort of paralytic agent the patient's voluntary muscles could and did jerk as a result of reflexes, even if the patient was under general anesthesia.

They don't use it any more. Better drugs have been developed.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:20 PM on April 10, 2007

Well, at least I didn't think they used it any more, but it sounds like gramcracker knows more about it than I ever will.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:20 PM on April 10, 2007

Curare - it relaxes the muscles but does not affect sensation of pain etc. Too much and it relaxes the muscles that control breathing - oops.
posted by caddis at 9:21 PM on April 10, 2007

Tetrodotoxin would have huge effects on the heart and brain along with muscle, so won't get the effect you're looking for. Seconding succinylcholine and curare compounds. From the wikipedia page on neuromuscular blocking agents:

Patients are still aware of pain even after full conduction block has occurred; hence, general anesthetics and/or analgesics must be given to prevent anesthesia awareness.

A friend of mine had a frightening experience coming out of anesthesia after minor surgery - aparently she has deficient plasma cholinesterase, so could not break down the paralytic drug and was still paralyzed upon regaining conciousness. And couldn't tell anyone she was paralyzed.
posted by twoporedomain at 9:22 PM on April 10, 2007

Tetrodotoxin was supposed to be the toxin used in the movie, "The Serpent and The Rainbow" to produce zombies. Dissociative anaesthetics like scopolamine or special K don't paralyze.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:44 AM on April 11, 2007

Yes, curare. Apparently it was used for sedation in veterinary medicine for a long time, then someone used it on a human. After the operation, the lucky victim broke the news that it was NOT in fact an anaesthetic, it just paralyzed them. Oops.
posted by selfmedicating at 7:47 AM on April 11, 2007

Gramcracker's right. The reason that straight curare isn't used any more is that we have chemically-synthesized analogues of it that behave much more predictably.

Succinylcholine works by a different mechanism to produce essentially the same result.

It is worth noting that someone under the influence of these drugs dies in several minutes unless respiratory support is given, because the drug paralyzes all the muscles, including the diaphragm, rendering the subject unable to breathe.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:13 AM on April 11, 2007

These drugs don't paralyze the heart muscles.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:18 AM on April 11, 2007

Right, SCDB. The drugs work at the level of the neuromuscular junction, and cardiomyocytes lack a neuromuscular junction. They work on smooth and striated muscle.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:57 PM on April 11, 2007

Ketamine. Also known as K or Special K. A possible effect it can have known as 'falling into a K hole' completely fits your description. I don't know if Ketamine is the actual chemical or just the name of something it's in. But start there and you'll find one.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 8:58 AM on April 12, 2007