The 25,000-Year-Old Teeth That Just Rewrote The History Of Human Drug Use

Arecoline belongs in this family.

The specific mechanism of arecoline’s action is at the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain and peripheral nervous system.

These receptors are part of the parasympathetic nervous system — the “rest and digest” branch of the autonomic nervous system — and they regulate a wide range of functions including heart rate, digestion, salivation, and cognitive processes.

Arecoline is an agonist at these receptors — it activates them, mimicking the natural neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

This activation produces a range of effects: increased salivation, decreased heart rate at low doses but increased heart rate at higher doses, and — most relevantly for understanding why people use it — stimulant effects on the central nervous system.