General Pharmacology of Anesthetic and Analgesic Drugs

Abstract

Anesthesia and pain management are two branches of veterinary clinical medicine that inarguably are inextricably intertwined with clinical pharmacology. This chapter introduces these fundamental pharmacological concepts as they relate to the practice of anesthesia. It talks about the classic receptor and the receptor state theories. The chapter illustrates the study of receptor structures using a few examples only of receptors that have a particular importance in the field of anesthesia. The discussion is limited to some membrane receptors, ion channels, and G-protein receptors. Background knowledge of the pharmacokinetics (PK) of a drug is necessary to permit the proper use of that drug in ..