[vorel]

I am interested in learning more about the pharmacological mechanisms of action behind substance GVS-111

I would appreciate it if someone could point me to literature that would help me potentially explore analogs of this substance in the future and how to safely and effectively test them for activity and toxicity.

I am an undergraduate biology major (USA) and I am open to thoughts and ideas as well as suggestions as to how I should approach my studies to align myself more closely with researchers that study such things.

Thanks!

[Babcock_Hall]

I am unfamiliar with this substance, and pharmacology is not my specialty.  The first thing I might do is to find its chemical name, and the second thing I would do is to use a scientific searching tool, such as PubMed or GoogleScholar to find some peer-reviewed papers on the subject.  Are you writing a paper of some sort?  IMO it is important that the at least some of sources you use be peer-reviewed articles.  PubMed will return 73 articles on GVS-111 alone, for example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12711349

[vorel]

I am not writing a paper. This is simply to educate myself and out of curiosity. Thank you.

[Yggdrasil]

Pubchem is a nice resource for looking up information on various drugs.  Here's the pubchem page for GVS-111: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=180496

[vorel]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I would appreciate it if someone could point me to literature or anything useful that describes how the electronics of the various moieties present influence the activity of noopept or other similar compounds

[Arkcon]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I would appreciate it if someone could point me to literature or anything useful that describes

The links specified above are good for that, you should try them, except:

how the electronics of the various moieties present influence the activity of noopept or other similar compounds

Much of that was gibberish.  Brain chemistry is an extremely complicated concept.  However, "moieties" definitely don't posses "electronics", as an example.

[vorel]

I apologize. English is not my primary language.

Please allow me to clarify...

In that specific case I was referring to the electron deficient nature of the electrophilic carbonyl carbon. I was speculating that perhaps due to its local electron configuration and slight positive charge it may possess a hydrophilic character which in conjunction with the nucleophilic slight negative charge on the oxygen be responsible for local binding activity on the AMPA receptor

I know that effectors modulate activity of proteins based on hydrogen bonding and hence hydrophilic or hydrophobic attraction and repulsion. To my knowledge, it is the attraction and/or repulsion between the ligand (GVS-111 in this case) and the protein in question that determines the activity of this effector.

The articles linked are interesting in that they provide insight as to what is known about several similar compounds but does not do much in terms of explaining how for instance a reduction of the carbonyl moieties in GVS-111 would change its binding profile and perhaps activity

[Arkcon]

That is much clearer.  However, you are asking a different question now, than you did before.   You want to relate the structure of this pharmaceutical to its receptor in the human brain.  You have to know the receptor first, and that might not be known, at this point.  Although its likely it interacts with the same receptor its analogues interact with.  You also want the literature that relates the theoretical interactions of various charged groups between proteins.  These sort of discussions are typically found in undergraduate classrooms, but when they appear in peer-reviewed journals, they are conducted by Ph.D. level investigators, for a Ph.D. level reader.  You will find that the description is very technical, at least I often do.  Also, people try to verify these interactions, often with targeted NMR or X-ray crystallography.  Nevertheless, you will have to keep searching on your own for the topics you need.  You can use the authors from the papers above, to find other papers they've written, to see if you find a more expanded treatment of the topic you want.