The local anesthetic potency of norcocaine,a metabolite of cocaine

Summary The local anesthetic effects of cocaine and one of its main metabolites norcocaine, were investigated comparatively on isolated ganglion cells of the marine gastropod,Aplysia californica. During a 1-hour-period, different action potential parameters such as amplitude, duration, maximum rate of rise were observed, which demonstrated that norcocaine exhibits a higher local anesthetic potency than cocaine.Acknowledgments. The authors are grateful to Dr M. R. Klee and Dr M. R. Park for helpful discussion. The work was partly supported by Österreichischer Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung