answer:So-called muscle relaxants like Soma or Robaxin (there are many) act centrally to help relieve muscle spasm. In other words, they act on the brain (and possibly spinal cord) but not directly on the muscles. Many of these are in reality sedatives similar to Valium. In higher doses they produce sedation and sleepiness. Your muscles, however, remain just as strong as ever. There is another class of drugs, also knows as muscle relaxants, which are used in anesthesia to actually paralyze the muscles—often quite profoundly. You can’t move anything even if you try, though normally this doesn’t bother you because you’re unconscious and on a ventilator. These paralyzing agents are reversible, however, by specific other drugs. The original paralytic agent was curare, derived from the toxin used in South American blow darts to kill animal prey.