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Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters
New psychoactive “designer drugs” are synthetic compounds developed to provide similar effects to illicit drugs of abuse, but not subjected to legal control. The rapidly changing legal status of novel psychoactive drugs triggers the development of new compounds, analogs of well-known amphetamine or...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer US
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4786600/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26501352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12640-015-9569-1 |
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author | Gołembiowska, Krystyna Jurczak, Alexandra Kamińska, Katarzyna Noworyta-Sokołowska, Karolina Górska, Anna |
author_facet | Gołembiowska, Krystyna Jurczak, Alexandra Kamińska, Katarzyna Noworyta-Sokołowska, Karolina Górska, Anna |
author_sort | Gołembiowska, Krystyna |
collection | PubMed |
description | New psychoactive “designer drugs” are synthetic compounds developed to provide similar effects to illicit drugs of abuse, but not subjected to legal control. The rapidly changing legal status of novel psychoactive drugs triggers the development of new compounds, analogs of well-known amphetamine or mescaline. New designer drugs used as substitutes in ecstasy pills are the least investigated and can cause life-threatening effects on users. The aim of our research was to examine the effects of acute administration of 4-methoxyamphetamine (PMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg), 4-methoxy-N-methylamphetamine (PMMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg), and mephedrone (MEPH, 5, 10 and 20 mg/kg) on extracellular and tissue level of dopamine (DA), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and their metabolites in rat brain, by microdialysis method in freely moving animals and HPLC. Similarly to 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg) PMA, PMMA and MEPH enhanced the release of DA and 5-HT in rat striatum, nucleus accumbens, and frontal cortex. DA tissue content was increased by MEPH and PMMA in striatum, by MEPH, PMA, and PMMA in nucleus accumbens, and by PMA in frontal cortex. Instead, cortical DA level was decreased by MEPH and PMMA. MEPH did not influence 5-HT tissue level in striatum and nucleus accumbens, but decreased its level in frontal cortex. PMMA increased 5-HT content in striatum, while PMA enhanced it in nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex. Observed changes in brain monoamines and their metabolites by new psychoactive drugs suggest that these drugs may be capable of development of dependence. Further experiments are needed to fully investigate the neurotoxic and abuse potential of those drugs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4786600 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47866002016-04-09 Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters Gołembiowska, Krystyna Jurczak, Alexandra Kamińska, Katarzyna Noworyta-Sokołowska, Karolina Górska, Anna Neurotox Res Original Article New psychoactive “designer drugs” are synthetic compounds developed to provide similar effects to illicit drugs of abuse, but not subjected to legal control. The rapidly changing legal status of novel psychoactive drugs triggers the development of new compounds, analogs of well-known amphetamine or mescaline. New designer drugs used as substitutes in ecstasy pills are the least investigated and can cause life-threatening effects on users. The aim of our research was to examine the effects of acute administration of 4-methoxyamphetamine (PMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg), 4-methoxy-N-methylamphetamine (PMMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg), and mephedrone (MEPH, 5, 10 and 20 mg/kg) on extracellular and tissue level of dopamine (DA), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and their metabolites in rat brain, by microdialysis method in freely moving animals and HPLC. Similarly to 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 5 and 10 mg/kg) PMA, PMMA and MEPH enhanced the release of DA and 5-HT in rat striatum, nucleus accumbens, and frontal cortex. DA tissue content was increased by MEPH and PMMA in striatum, by MEPH, PMA, and PMMA in nucleus accumbens, and by PMA in frontal cortex. Instead, cortical DA level was decreased by MEPH and PMMA. MEPH did not influence 5-HT tissue level in striatum and nucleus accumbens, but decreased its level in frontal cortex. PMMA increased 5-HT content in striatum, while PMA enhanced it in nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex. Observed changes in brain monoamines and their metabolites by new psychoactive drugs suggest that these drugs may be capable of development of dependence. Further experiments are needed to fully investigate the neurotoxic and abuse potential of those drugs. Springer US 2015-10-26 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4786600/ /pubmed/26501352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12640-015-9569-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Gołembiowska, Krystyna Jurczak, Alexandra Kamińska, Katarzyna Noworyta-Sokołowska, Karolina Górska, Anna Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title | Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title_full | Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title_fullStr | Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title_full_unstemmed | Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title_short | Effect of Some Psychoactive Drugs Used as ‘Legal Highs’ on Brain Neurotransmitters |
title_sort | effect of some psychoactive drugs used as ‘legal highs’ on brain neurotransmitters |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4786600/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26501352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12640-015-9569-1 |
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