Description
Understanding and addressing the current opioid crisis requires knowledge of endogenous opioids (endorphins and enkephalins), but there is now evidence for a benzodiazepine crisis. Are there endogenous benzodiazepine-like substances—and what do they do? How do they affect antianxiety drugs and their adverse effects? Do they explain enigmatic prolonged benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome? This book raises important questions about the clinical consequences of ignoring the existence of or understanding the potential influence of endogenous benzodiazepines on the therapeutic effect of benzodiazepines, their adverse effects, and the problems of withdrawal from them and other benzodiazepine receptor agonists.
FEATURES
- Discusses endogenous benzodiazepine-like substances—what do they do, and do they affect antianxiety drugs and their adverse effects?
- Presents information on enigmatic prolonged benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome
- Describes the compounds acting at the BDZ binding sites, both exogenous (classical BDZ drugs and BDZ from food and plants) and endogenous (endozepines)
- Assesses the putative interactions in physiology, pathology, and pharmacology of the compounds acting at the BDZ binding sites
Dr. Raffa is Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and Professor Emeritus at Temple University School of Pharmacy. He has co-authored or edited several books on pharmacology and thermodynamics, is a co-editor of two journals, is a past president of the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society, and is the recipient of research and teaching awards.
Dr. Amantea is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences of the University of Calabria (Italy), where she is the leader of the Stroke Research Unit at the Section of Preclinical and Translational Pharmacology operating in the frame of the Italian Stroke Organization (ISO) Basic Science. She is a member of the Editorial Board and the Guest Editor of the 2016 Neuroscience section of Current Opinion in Pharmacology (Elsevier), and the founder and the editor of the CRC Press Frontiers in Neurotherapeutics series.
Table of Contents
Preface RB Raffa & D Amantea
Section I: Introduction and Basic Principles
Chapter 1 Introduction
RB Raffa
Chapter 2 Benzodiazepines and Related Substances: Chemistry
F Grande, MA Occhiuzzi & A Garofalo
Chapter 3 Central Benzodiazepine Receptors: Structure and Function
MH Ossipov
Chapter 4 Benzodiazepines and Related Substances: Therapeutic Uses and Problems
J Kitzen
Chapter 5 Peripheral Benzodiazepine Receptors
D Amantea
Section II: Naturally-occurring Benzodiazepines
Chapter 6 The search for Endogenous Benzodiazepines in Humans
J LeQuang
Chapter 7 Evidence for Presence in Non-human Animals
Oné Pagan, PhD
Chapter 8 Biologically Active Phytochemicals Having Benzodiazepine-like Actions
D Montesano & M Gallo
Chapter 9 Benzodiazepines, Flavonoids and GABA
T Hinton & G Johnston
Chapter 10 The Microbiome and Benzodiazepines: A Connection?
J LeQuang
Section III: Implications for Therapeutics
Chapter 11 Anxiety, Sleep, and Benzodiazepines
J Peppin
Chapter 12 The Effects of Benzodiazepines on Memory
J LeQuang
Chapter 13 Naturally Occurring and Exogenous Benzodiazepines in Epilepsy: An Update
F-M Werner & R Coveñas
Section IV: Implications for Tolerance, Withdrawal, Abuse
Chapter 14 Impact of Endogenous Benzodiazepines on Tolerance, Abuse, or Withdrawal
RB Raffa & D Amantea
