Walsh & Hoyt: Traumatic Optic Neuropathies: Pharmacology - Experimental

Over the past thirty years, research in acute spinal cord trauma has demonstrated a pharmacology for very high doses of corticosteroids that is distinct from the pharmacology of steroids in the doses more typically encountered in clinical practice. In the doses usually encountered in clinical practice, corticosteroids are thought to act by decreasing the rate of protein synthesis. Receptor proteins in the cytosol mediate this action. In lymphocytes, this steroid-receptor complex stimulates the synthesis of an inhibitory protein. In addition, glucocorticoids inhibit the release of arachidonic acid from phospholipids, decreasing the production of prostaglandin endoperoxides and thromboxane.