Water Chreodes and the Mechanisms of Ligand Diffusion, General Anesthesia, and Sleep

Abstract

The concept of the presence of passageways, chreodes, created by the influence of the hydropathic states of amino acid side chains on the surface water of proteins, has been proposed. These chreodes facilitate and direct the diffusion of neurotransmitters through surface water, to the receptor or active site on a protein. This system of chreodes is vulnerable to the presence of some other molecules that may encounter the chreode system. This encounter and disruption has been proposed to explain the mechanism of general anesthesia. Based on much recent evidence of the similarities between anesthesia from volatile anesthetic agents and sleep, a comparable mechanism has been proposed for sleep. Since this must be an exogenous substance to be comparable to a general anesthetic agent, it was proposed that this exogenous, sleep-producing substance is elemental nitrogen. Recent evidence supports these hypotheses.