In a naturalistic setting, recreational users who consumed chemically verified MDMA performed a self-focused compassionate imagery exercise on two separate occasions: once after taking MDMA and once without. The exercise and MDMA each independently increased emotional empathy toward critical facial expressions and self-compassion, and their effects on self-compassion appeared to add together. The findings suggest that combining MDMA with compassionate imagery may enhance self-directed affiliative feelings, though controlled studies are needed to confirm the combined utility for therapeutic contexts.
A low-cost, field-portable device using Hybridized Spectral Fingerprinting (HSF) and deep learning can rapidly screen illicit drug samples for MDMA dosage and cocaine/ketamine purity. A convolutional neural network trained on 62 GC-EI-MS quantified MDMA tablets classified samples into 1–170 mg or 170–300 mg dosage brackets, achieving 98% accuracy on 195 external test samples. Another model trained on 1H NMR quantified cocaine and ketamine samples provided presumptive identification and semi-quantitative purity estimation with 96% accuracy on 47 external samples. The approach supports harm reduction and police screening by alerting on potentially harmful MDMA tablets and estimating cocaine and ketamine purity.
Salvinorin A, the active component of Salvia divinorum, is a potent kappa-opioid receptor agonist. Computer modeling suggested that splendidin from Salvia splendens and related compounds might have similar activity. However, none of the tested compounds showed significant binding to mu-, delta-, or kappa-opioid receptors, disproving that hypothesis. Two novel compounds were obtained semi-synthetically from salvifarin isolated from Salvia farinacea. The X-ray crystal structure of salvifaricin was determined for the first time and used to elucidate absolute configurations of new products. The relatively accessible diterpenoid salvifaricin could serve as starting material for future structure-activity relationship studies at the kappa-opioid receptor.