What is Physostigmine?
Physostigmin is a secondary metabolite produced by African tropical wine vines Physistigma venosum known as the beans Calabar. This compound is used as a medicine in humans to treat glaucoma and myasthenia gravis and was suddenly considered to be the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It acts as a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor, a protein that degrades acetylcholine. Most of the body movement relies on the transmission of signals from nerve cells to muscles that are mediated by acetylcholine. In general, they are highly toxic to animals because they form an irreversible complex with cholinesterase. This causes muscles to maintain and paralysis and death may occur. This method of effect uses many insecticides as well as some nerve gases. On the other hand, physiostigmin binds cholinesterase reversibly, allowing it to be used as a medicine in humans.
Physistigmin sulfate is a form used as a medicine in the United States and is used in the treatment of glaucoma. Physistigmin is effective in obtaining extra waterTiny that drains from the eye. It also works as a miotic, which causes pupils to limit. This feature can also help with glaucoma treatment. Sometimes it is used as a miotic after expanding the eyes during eye examination.
Diseases weakening myasthenia gravis muscles can be effectively treated with this anticholinesterase. The effect of this disorder prevents acetylcholine from merging its function activation. Thus, physiostigmine treatment can help alleviate the symptoms of this disease.
Clinical studies have been conducted with physiostigmine to see if it could improve the functioning of patients with Alzheimer's disease, as it was hypothesized that the symptoms of disappearance were caused by a lack of sufficient amounts of acetylcholin. Treatment with this compound caused a small but measurable increase in cognitive skills. However, patients suffered from drastic side effects and most of them fell out of tests. By the conclusion,that this medicine would not be useful to treat Alzheimer's disease.
Another feature of physiostigmine is that it can cross the barrier of the blood-frame and affect the central nervous system (CNS). This makes it possible to use medicines to treat overdose that cause too large acetylcholine. This is called cholinergic effect. This effect can cause overdose with plant compounds atropine and scopolamine. A common and potentially fatal source of such drugs is the consumption or inhalation of the Jimson weeds, Datura Stramonium as an attempt at hallucinogen.
Chemical synthesis of physiostigmine is a highly difficult business due to the complexity of the molecule. Another complication is that there are two forms of compounds known as stereoisomers, but only one form is active as a medicine. Chemists have discovered a way to synthesize this chemical in the laboratory in 1935, and a number of different methods have been developed. In general, this chemical is isolated from ripe, dry seeds of bean plantse Calabar than to be synthesized from scratch.