QSAR Studies of Compounds Acting by Polar and Non-polar Narcosis: an Examination of the Role of Polarisability and Hydrogen Bonding

The toxicities of 33 non-polar narcotics and 15 polar narcotics have been correlated with the logarithm of the octanol-water partition coefficient (log P). Correlations have also been obtained of toxicities with polarisabilities (α) and free energy hydrogen bond acceptor factors (Ca) calculated using HYBOT-PLUS. There are clear differences in the way non-polar and polar narcotics correlate with log P and with α and Ca, indicating that the two classes of compound exert their toxicity by somewhat different mechanisms.