Brain sarin toxicity

Tripathi, H.L. and W.L. Dewey. 1989. Comparison of the effect of diisopropylfluorophosphate, sarin, soman, and tabun on toxicity and brain acetylcholinesterase activity in mice. J. Toxicol. Environ. Health, 26 437 46. (cited in Somani et al., 1991)... 

Organophosphate IA class of toxic organic molecules containing phosphate, and often fluoride, that are used as insecticides and nerve gases (such as sarin) many of these molecules block the action of an enzyme (acetylcholinesterase) that recycles an important brain chemical called acetylcholine. 

Berry I was unhappy about your phosphorylated oxime since it has been found that the toxic and anticholinesterase effects of ethyl-sarin were more reversible than those of sarin. However, your control experiments with liver show that the brain results cannot be attributed to rapid spontaneous reactivation. 

Nerve agents differ from commonly used ChE inhibitors primarily because they are more toxic (ie, a smaller amount is needed to cause an effect on an organism). For example, an in vitro study43 with ChE from human erythrocytes, brain, and muscle showed that sarin had about 10-fold more inhibitory activity than TEPP, 30-fold more than neostigmine, 100-fold more than DFP, and 1,000-fold more than parathion. 

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