[revelation]

Donepezil is a cholinesterase inhibitor, meaning it increases the amount of acetylcholine circulating around nerve endings.

They just casually put that there, but I don't think most readers will be exactly familiar with what that means? It's basically raising the baselevel of what is one of the most common neurotransmitters. It's a carpet-bomb, not the targeted strike the article makes it out to be.

[hyperion2010]

Sarin and VX are also irreversible cholinesterase inhibitors. And yes, any pharmacological manipulation should be viewed as a systematic and extremely nonspecific manipulation that will virtually always have unintended side effects.

[derefr]

If I recall, isn't caffeine (effectively) an cholinesterase inhibitor?

[jey]

No, it's primarily an adenosine antagonist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Mechanism_of_action

[derefr]

Right, that's why I said "effectively": caffeine inhibits adenosine from inhibiting cholinesterase (which itself inhibits acetylcholine.) Isn't biology fun?

[jey]

That may be true, but the difference is that caffeine doesn't inhibit cholinesterase across the board.