Rhodium (Chief Bee) 08-18-03 07:13 No 454353				Effects of alpha-Ethyltryptamine optical isomers (Rated as: excellent)	Bookmark
						Discriminative stimulus properties of -ethyltryptamine optical isomers Seoung-Soo Hong, Richard Young and Richard A. Glennon Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 70(2-3), 311-316 (2001) (../rhodium/pdf /alpha-ethyltryptamine.optical.isomers.pdf) DOI:10.1016/S0091-3057(01)00605-0 Abstract -Ethyltryptamine (-ET) possesses central stimulant and hallucinogenic activity. Also, in tests of stimulus generalization using rats trained to discriminate the controlled substance analog (i.e., designer drug) N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane (MDMA) from vehicle, -ET substituted for MDMA. These previous studies employed racemic -ET. Because psychoactive phenylalkylamines with abuse potential can produce one or more of three distinct stimulus effects (i.e., amphetamine-, DOM- and/or PMMA-like effects) in animals trained to discriminate either the stimulant (+)amphetamine, the hallucinogen 1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-aminopropane (DOM), or N-methyl-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane (PMMA) from vehicle, and because these effects can be stereoselective, the individual optical isomers of -ET were examined in groups of animals trained to discriminate (+)amphetamine, DOM, PMMA and MDMA from saline vehicle. (-)-ET (ED50=7.8 mg/kg), but not (+)-ET (maximum of 53% drug-appropriate responding), substituted for (+)amphetamine, whereas (+)-ET (ED50=2.7 mg/kg), but not (-)-ET (maximum of 33% drug-appropriate responding), substituted for DOM. Both optical isomers of -ET substituted for PMMA and MDMA with ED50 values of 1.6 and 1.4 mg/kg (PMMA-trained animals) and 1.3 and 2.0 mg/kg (MDMA-trained animals) for (-)-ET and (+)-ET, respectively. The results of this investigation suggest that both optical isomers of -ET are capable of producing an MDMA/PMMA-like effect at nearly comparable doses, and that the stimulant or amphetamine-like nature of -ET resides primarily with its (-)isomer whereas hallucinogenic or DOM-like character resides primarily with the (+)enantiomer. Also see Medline (PMID=1722753) for information about the possible neurotoxicity of -ethyltryptamine.