Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. Today is all about a common sleeping pill

and really some fascinating and I think really interesting research that at least I thought would be

helpful for general knowledge. The sleeping pill that we're talking about today

is Ambien, also known as Zolpidim. And Ambien is a widely prescribed, and it's what we call a non-benzoidiasopine,

sedative hypnotic. Oh my goodness. There's a lot going on in there. So it's a drug that is of

not a certain class, meaning the non-benzo-diasapine part of it. It's not a benzo. It's a non-benzo,

but it acts very similar to a benzodiazepine.

And what it produces is a form of sedation, and that sedation is used specifically for sleep,

hence the final part, sedative hypnotic.

Hence, Ambien is a non-benzodiazepine sedative hypnotic and it is prescribed specifically for short-term

treatment of insomnia or at least that is how it's designated to be used. As you probably will know,

Ambien is often used in much longer duration settings. Some people have not been on it for several months. They've been on it for maybe tens of months. Some have been on it for maybe even a couple of years. And it is unlike a traditional benzodiazepine in that it tickles the receptor in the brain that it targets in a slightly different way.

Now, benzodiazepine drugs, things like Valium, they will target what are called the GABA receptors in the brain.

GABA is a neurotransmitter and it stands for gamma aminobuteric acid.

And GABA is the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain.

So that when you stimulate those receptors, what you're going to be doing

is shutting down brain activity. The traditional benzodiazepines, as I said, things like

Valium and Tamazepam, they would just target the gabereceptor directly. The drugs like Ambien and some of the other similar

drugs like Linester and Sonata, those drugs, they do end up activating the gabber receptor

and a specific subtype of one of those gaber receptors, something that that we call the GABA receptor, but they tickle it

in a very specific way. They don't really go after it directly. And they target a little smaller

site on the side of the receptor. And that little smaller site is what we call a subunit of the receptor.

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