Drug Testing and Analysis
March 15, 2026
Simon K. Wellenberg, Lea Wagmann, Matthias D. Kroesen et al.
ABSTRACT 3,4‐Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) remains unapproved for therapeutic use despite the promising results of MDMA‐assisted psychotherapy. There is a need to better understand the safety, pharmacokinetics, and toxicology of possible MDMA‐based prodrugs. Like lisdexamfetamine, amino acid prodrugs of MDMA may enable more controlled systemic exposure, but their metabolic activation...
Toxicology
March 1, 2026
Lea Wagmann, Simon D. Brandt, Pierce V. Kavanagh et al.
3-(2-Aminopropyl)benzo[b]thiophene (3-APBT), 5-APBT, and 6-APBT are recently identified psychedelics and entactogens that activate serotonin 2 receptor subtypes and lead to a head-twitch response in mice. The present study characterized their toxicokinetics, metabolism, and monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibition using liquid chromatography-high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry. Metabolites were...
Drug Testing and Analysis
August 1, 2025
Fabian Frankenfeld, Lea Wagmann, Markus R Meyer
2 citations
Wastewater (WW)-based epidemiology (WBE) is a powerful tool for screening and surveillance of drugs (of abuse) or new psychoactive substances (NPSs) in larger population. Since the drug market changes frequently, it is crucial for WBE to define screening and surveillance biomarkers considering drug metabolism and (microbial) stability. The aims of the presented work were first to identify...
Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis
August 1, 2024
Tanja M Gampfer, Victoria Schütz, Philip Schippers et al.
11 citations
The continuous emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS) attracted a great deal of attention within recent years. Lately, the two hallucinogenic NPS 1cP-LSD and 4-AcO-DET have appeared on the global market. Knowledge about their metabolism to identify potential metabolic targets for analysis and their cytotoxic properties is lacking. The aim of this work was thus to study their in vitro...
Metabolites
May 8, 2024
Fabian Frankenfeld, Lea Wagmann, Anush Abelian et al.
3 citations
Ketamine derivatives such as deschloroketamine and deschloro-N-ethyl-ketamine show dissociative and psychoactive properties and their abuse as new psychoactive substances (NPSs) has been reported. Though some information is available on the biotransformation of dissociative NPSs, data on deschloro-N-cyclopropyl-ketamine deschloro-N-isopropyl-ketamine and deschloro-N-propyl-ketamine concerning...
Journal of Analytical Toxicology
June 3, 2021
Lea Wagmann, Sascha K. Manier, Markus R Meyer
11 citations
Tryptamines represent a group of hallucinogenic new psychoactive substances with increasing prevalence. Unfortunately, only limited data concerning their toxicology and bioanalysis are available as tryptamines are not included in routine screening procedures in many laboratories. In order to expand the current knowledge, we report a non-fatal clinical toxicology case involving the synthetic...
Neuropharmacology
November 19, 2019
Adam L. Halberstadt, Muhammad Chatha, Adam K. Klein et al.
37 citations
The ergoline d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is one of the most potent psychedelic drugs. 1-Acetyl-LSD (ALD-52), a derivative of LSD containing an acetyl group on the indole nitrogen, also produces psychedelic effects in humans and has about the same potency as LSD. Recently, several other 1-acyl-substitued LSD derivatives, including 1-propanoyl-LSD (1P-LSD) and 1-butanoyl-LSD (1B-LSD), have...
Drug Testing and Analysis
October 1, 2019
Lea Wagmann, Nora Hempel, Lilian H. J. Richter et al.
20 citations
Psychoactive substances of the 2C-series are phenethylamine-based designer drugs that can induce psychostimulant and hallucinogenic effects. The so-called 2C-FLY series contains rigidified methoxy groups integrated in a 2,3,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']difuran core. The aim of the presented work was to investigate the in vivo and in vitro metabolic fate including isoenzyme activities and...
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry
July 19, 2019
Lea Wagmann, Lilian H. J. Richter, Tobias Kehl et al.
The market of new psychoactive substances (NPS) is characterized by a high turnover and thus provides several challenges for analytical toxicology. The analysis of urine samples often requires detailed knowledge about metabolism given that parent compounds either may be present only in small amounts or may not even be excreted. Hence, knowledge of the metabolism of NPS is a prerequisite for the...
Drug Testing and Analysis
February 1, 2019
Lea Wagmann, Simon D. Brandt, Alexander Stratford et al.
26 citations
Psychoactive substances of the 2C-series (2Cs) are phenethylamine-derived designer drugs that can induce psychostimulant and hallucinogenic effects. Chemically, the classic 2Cs contain two methoxy groups in positions 2 and 5 of the phenyl ring, whereas substances of the so-called FLY series contain rigidified methoxy groups integrated in a 2,3,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']difuran core. One...
Toxicology Letters
April 15, 2017
Lea Wagmann, Simon D. Brandt, Pierce V. Kavanagh et al.
Tryptamines have emerged as new psychoactive substances (NPS), which are distributed and consumed recreationally without preclinical studies or safety tests. Within the alpha-methylated tryptamines, some of the psychoactive effects of the prototypical alpha-methyltryptamine (AMT) have been described decades ago and a contributing factor of its acute toxicity appears to involve the inhibition of...