How Does Alprazolam Work?

About Alprazolam

Alprazolam is a type of benzodiazepine that is used to treat panic disorders, general anxiety symptoms and, unique among these drug types, depression. When it was first tested in the '60s and '70s, patients found the drug to greatly reduce panic and anxiety attacks, making it easy to patent and prescribe it to people suffering from those ailments. More commonly, alprazolam is known as Xanax or Niravem. It is a drug that has had a long run in treating disorders that are still undergoing changes in definition but they have been widely accepted to relieve patients of the symptoms of those disorders.

Injestion and Digestion

Alprazolam is taken in pill form and takes about one to two hours to reach full effectiveness. As it passes through the body, it is absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. It is here that the body is able to most easily absorb the drug after it is broken down by digestive juices. Most of the drug is bound to plasma protein, though some is also broken down further in the liver. This form also allows the drug to work its desired effects on the patient. There is always a small portion of the drug that is never broken down and absorbed by the body, so it leaves the body as excrement waste.

Affecting the GABA Receptors

Whether alprazolam has been plasma-bound or hydroxylated in the liver, the effect is the same. Like all drugs in the benzodiazepine class, alprazolam affects the GABA receptors in the brain. These are the most prolific inhibitory receptor in the brain, and the effect is a general numbing of this area. Panic disorders and depression are both results of abnormal interference with GABA receptors. Specifically, alprazolam affects a certain subgroup known as GABAa. The drug is able to alter this receptor instead of others and that is how it is able to work against panic disorders and depression.

Alprazolam's Affect on the Body

When the GABAa receptor is affected by this drug, patients do not feel overly excited, rushed or panicked. Uncontrollable bursts of these feelings are a result of abnormal tampering of the GABA receptors as well as other parts of the brain. The opposite is true, where the body is feeling low, in the case of depression. While albrazolam cannot cure a patient of these ailments, it has been known to be very good at preventing bouts of panic and depression and relieving the patient of many symptoms when the problem is occurring.