Pharmacological influencing of cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway in infectious diseases and inflammatory pathologies
: Cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway is a part of parasympathetic nervous system and it can be also entitled as an anti-inflammatory reflex. It consists from terminations of vagal nerve into blood, acetylcholine released from the terminations, macrophages and other cells having α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7 nAChR), calcium ions crossing through the receptor and interacting with nuclear factors, and erythrocytes with acetylcholinesterase (AChE) terminating the neurotransmission. Stopping of inflammatory cytokines production is the major task for the cholinergic antiinflammatory pathway. The pathway can be pharmacologically influenced by agonizing respective antagonizing on α7 nAChR or by inhibition of AChE. This review is focused on cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway regulation by drugs. Compounds that inhibit cholinesterases like huperzine, rivastigmine, galantamine and distinguishing between types of inhibitors and impact on cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway is discussed and survey of actual literature is provided.