I've been trying to understand why different alcohols have different effects on the brain.
Methanol is obviously poisonous, apparently because it's converted to formic acid. Because the body seems to cut organic substances in two's, any odd-numbered alcohol would seem to yield methanol, and therefore be poisonous. But why is 1-butanol (according to certain sites) more toxic than ethanol? Does it have a different effect on the receptors in the brain? And if so, why? Same with other simple even-numbered alcohols: why are their effects different from ethanol?