Decamethonium

Indications

• Formerly used in anesthesia to induce paralysis.

Administration/Absorption

Distribution

Mechanism

• depolarizing muscle relaxant

• partial agonist of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor

• In the motor endplate, it causes depolarization, preventing further effects to the normal release of acetylcholine from thepresynaptic terminal

  • therefore preventing the neural stimulus from affecting the muscle.

• In the process of binding, decamethonium actually activates (depolarizes) the motor endplate

  • but since the decamethonium itself is not degraded, the membrane remains depolarized and unresponsive to normal acetylcholine release.

Excretion