The effects of local anesthetics on the rate of the agonist-induced increase in ligand affinity of membrane-bound acetylcholine receptor from Torpedo californica were examined. The rate of the transition in receptor affinity was determined by following the time-dependent increase in inhibition of iodinated alpha-bungarotoxin binding caused by 1 microM carbamylcholine. At concentrations below those that directly inhibited the binding of iodinated alpha-bungarotoxin, dibucaine increased the rate of the transition to a high-affinity state and tetracaine decreased this rate. The measured rate constants were 0.026 +/- 0.008 s-1 in the presence and 0.010 +/- 0.002 s-1 in the absence of dibucaine while tetracaine decreased the rate to 0.006 +/- 0.002 s-1 as compared to a control value of 0.012 +/- 0.003 s-1. A parallel was observed between the effectiveness of a compound in increasing or decreasing the rate of the agonist-induced transition in affinity and the change in its apparent inhibition constant in the presence of carbamylcholine (increase or decrease) measured by the displacement of tritiated perhydrohistrionicotoxin. This parallel could be explained by assuming (a) that local anesthetics bound directly to the specific histrionicotoxin binding site or (b) that they bound to a different site and the observed effects were caused by conformational changes.