Truth Serums

Truth Serums

Meet the Fockers	Jack: You seem tense I was going to offer you a sedative [squirts the needle]. Greg: You're joking right? Jack: No I'm not Greg: [Laughs]...Jack Jack: Is that tartar sauce on your shoulder? Greg: Tartar sauce? [Looks in the mirror] Jack: [Injects Greg in the neck] Greg: ...why? Jack: You've been injected with a highly concentrated dose of sodium pentothal. Street name "truth serum". You will have no recollection of this in a few minutes, and tonight for the first time in your life my friend, you are going to be honest.

U.K. CERTIFICATE: 12A
RUNTIME: 115 mins
SYNOPSIS: Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is injected with sodium pentothal by his father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro).

Sodium Pentothal

Bill: What lies within that dart, just begging to course its way through your veins, is a potent and quite infallible truth serum. I call it “The Undisputed Truth.” Twice as strong as sodium pentothal, with none of the druggie after-effect. Oh, except for a slight wave of euphoria. Can you feel it? (Kill Bill: Vol. 2)

History: Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalee L. Tabern, working for Abbott Laboratories, discovered Sodium thiopental in the early 1930s. Dr. Ralph M. Waters first used it in human beings on March 8, 1934. The investigation centred on its properties, which were discovered to be short-term anesthesia, but surprisingly little analgesia.

Effect: This short-acting barbiturate is fat-soluble and acts very quickly within the body. Once injected with sodium pentathol and asked to count backwards from 100, the patient is most likely to forget counting past 95.

Lethal injection: In combination with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, sodium pentathol is used in certain U.S. states of the to execute prisoners on death row via lethal injection. A high overdose is administered which places the victim into a rapidly induced coma.

Click on the picture above to interact
with the 3D model of the
Sodium Pentothal structure

Chemical Name: Sodium thiopental
IUPAC Name: Sodium 5 - ethyl - 6 - oxo - 5 - pentan - 2 - yl - 2 - sulfanylidene - pyrimidin - 4 - olate
Molecular Formula: C₁₁H₁₇N₂NaO₂S

True Lies	Helen: What did they give you? Harry: Sodium amytal, or some other truth agent. Helen: Is it working? Harry: Ask me a question I would normally lie to Helen: Are we going to die? Harry: Yep!

U.K. CERTIFICATE: 15
RUNTIME: 144 mins
SYNOPSIS: Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is captured along with his wife Helen Tasker (Jamie Lee Curtis), and is subjected to sodium amytal.

Sodium Amytal

Bowman: What about sweating Lecter?
Graham: We tried sodium amytal on him three years ago to find where he buried a Princeton student; he gave them a recipe for dip. (Red Dragon)

Properties: White crystalline powder with no odour and a faint bitter taste. Sodium amytal is a drug that contains the active ingredient amobarbital (formerly known as amylobarbitone), which is a barbiturate derivative. It possesses hypnotic and analgesic properties.

Pharmacological Action: Sodium amytal works by activating GABA-A receptors, thus in turn decreasing input resistance and reducing tonic firing in neurons, while simultaneously increasing burst duration of nerve impulses along with mean conductance at chloride (Cl^-) ion channels. As a result the decay time and relative amplitude of inhibitory postsynaptic impulses are increased.

Click on the picture above to interact
with the 3D model of the
Sodium Amytal structure

Chemical Name: Sodium Amobarbital
IUPAC Name: Sodium 5 - ethyl - 5 - (3 - methylbutyl) - 4, 6 - dioxo - 1H - pyrimidin - 2 - olate
Molecular Formula: C₁₁H₁₈N₂NaO₃

GABA-A Receptors

Barbiturates are a class of drugs that act on GABA-A protein receptors within the CNS (brain and spinal cord). GABA-A is a multimeric trans-membrane receptor consisting of 5 subunits positioned around a central channel (pore). This receptor sits in the neuron membrane at a synapse. Barbiturates bind to the receptor with a high affinity (overdose can be lethal); once bound the GABA-A receptor it changes conformation opening its pore allowing the influx of Cl^- ions. This hyperpolarizes the cell, which in turn inhibits the action of the receptor. Barbiturates possess anaesthetic, sedative, and hypnotic properties.

Click on the picture above to view the protein structure (-helices and -strands) of the GABA-A receptor

Effective?

Truth serums are intravenous sedatives that are injected in small doses. They make the patient woozy, with the hypnotizing effect impairing judgment and higher brain functions. This may cause the victim to respond to any request given during an interrogation.

However truth serums cannot be relied upon 100% because patients have been known to make false statements while under treatment, as the patient under the influence of the drug can sometimes confuse fact with fantasy.

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