Anti-inflammatory Silent Agonists.

The traditional view of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) is that they strictly exert their functions via their well-known ion channel activity. With the identification of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway and the critical involvement of the α7 nAChR, an alternate modality of function has emerged for the receptor involving metabotropic-like activity. The new emerging pharmacology for the receptor includes ligands termed silent agonists, which exert little or no ionotropic activity, yet are capable of modulating cellular inflammatory responses.