Mechanism, Energetics, and Pathways for Association and Binding of Anesthetics to Membranes and Membrane Channels

General anesthetics have, arguably, been one of the most important advances in medicine. Yet despite over a century of research, the mechanism of general anesthesia is still poorly understood. While it is well accepted that the biological targets of anesthetics are the ligand-gated ion channels of the Cys-loop superfamily, how anesthetics affect channel gating dynamics is unknown. Recently, bacterial homologues of these channels have been...