The Sorption of Vapors by Monolayers. II.¹ Organic Vapors on Stearic Acid Monolayers²

3-Hydroxybutyric Acid Interacts with Lipid Monolayers at Concentrations That Impair Consciousness

“…The correlation between the concentrations at which physical effects of BHB on monolayers occur and the concentrations encountered in disease supports the hypothesis that BHB can indirectly exert biological effects on transmembrane proteins through its interactions with lipid membranes. This observation is also consistent with the hypothesis that BHB impairs consciousness by acting as an anesthetic, several of which have been shown to increase the surface pressure of monolayers at constant area 32,33 and have been proposed to have mechanistically important effects on bilayers. 11 This hypothesis has only been proposed recently, 7 even though diabetic ketoacidosis has been known since antiquity 1 and anesthesia has been used for surgery since the 1840s.…”

Adsorption

“…Numerous liquid-liquid interface adsorption systems were reported. These involved surface active agents by conventional techniques (305, 332) and radiotracer technique (166) at liquidair interfaces, high molecular weight paraffins naturally occurring in oil-water interfaces (65), surface active agents at organic solvent-water .interfaces (49), vapors at a liquid-air interface in the case of helium (148) or hexane (241) on water, and the behavior of stearic acid monolayers on water in contact with saturated organic vapors (63). Hutchinson (145) discussed the convention of locating the plane of the interface with respect to which calculations of the surface concentrations of materials adsorbed there are made.…”