Nerve Agents: What Are They and How Do They Work?

Very nice history.

I couldn't understand the "how AChE works" portion, but found this article and its diagrams helpful. https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/weap.html near as I can understand it, our entire body including heart and lungs work by cells sending messages to and from the nervous system. When the nervous system is no longer able to rely messages, our vital organs stop working. So if our nervous system is like a chain of inbox/outbox message relay system, the letters are ACh. When one cell's axon sends an ACh to the next cell, the next cell's inbox becomes full and nothing else can be received until it's cleared. AChE is the enzyme that clears a full inbox. Nerve agents bind to the site on an AChE that grabs ACh. Without the ability for these AChE protein to "clears the inbox", our nervous system cells can't communicate anymore, stopping these messages entirely.

I'm not sure exactly what ACh actually does other than "activate", but since they are used by central and peripheral nervous system, I'm guessing it's bad news bear. Little more detail here

https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/diaz.html