Abstract Serotonergic psychedelics possess considerable therapeutic potential. Although 5-HT 2A receptor activation mediates psychedelic effects, prototypical psychedelics activate both 5-HT 2A -Gq/11 and β-arrestin2 transducers, making their respective roles unclear. To elucidate this, we develop a series of 5-HT 2A -selective ligands with varying Gq efficacies, including β-arrestin-biased...
Summary Serotonergic psychedelics possess considerable therapeutic potential. Although 5-HT 2A receptor activation mediates psychedelic effects, prototypical psychedelics activate both 5-HT 2A -Gq/11 and β-arrestin2 signaling, making their respective roles unclear. To elucidate this, we developed a series of 5-HT 2A -selective ligands with varying Gq efficacies, including β-arrestin-biased...
The management of patients with concomitant chronic pain (CP) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) remains challenging for clinicians. Current chronic pharmacologic management is often unsuccessful, or has intolerable side effects to the patients. While not restricted to patients with chronic pain, these patients are often diagnosed with depression, presenting with symptoms such as poor mood,...
New psychoactive substances (NPS) are commonly referred to as 'research chemicals', 'designer drugs' or 'legal highs'. One NPS class is represented by dissociative anesthetics, which include analogues of the arylcyclohexylamine phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine and diphenidine. A recent addition to the NPS market was 4-[1-(3-methoxyphenyl)cyclohexyl]morpholine (3-MeO-PCMo), a morpholine analogue of...
1,2-Diarylethylamines including lanicemine, lefetamine, and remacemide have clinical relevance in a range of therapeutic areas including pain management, epilepsy, neurodegenerative disease and depression. More recently 1,2-diarylethylamines have been sold as 'legal highs' in a number of different forms including powders and tablets. These compounds are sold to circumvent governmental...
The structurally diverse nature of the 1,2-diphenylethylamine template provides access to a range of substances for drug discovery work but some have attracted attention as 'research chemicals'. The most recent examples include diphenidine, i.e. 1-(1,2-diphenylethyl)piperidine and 2-methoxydiphenidine, i.e. 1-[1-(2-methoxyphenyl)-2-phenylethyl]piperidine (MXP, methoxyphenidine, 2-MXP) that have...
2-Methoxydiphenidine, i.e. 1-[1-(2-methoxyphenyl)-2-phenylethyl]piperidine, also known as 'MXP' or '2-MeO-diphenidine' (or 2-MXP), has been available as a 'research chemical' since 2013 as a purported alternative to the 'dissociative anesthetics' methoxetamine and ketamine. Three deaths which involved the detection of 2-MXP in post-mortem blood and urine were encountered in forensic casework....
Substances with the diphenylethylamine nucleus represent a recent addition to the product catalog of dissociative agents sold as 'research chemicals' on the Internet. Diphenidine, i.e. 1-(1,2-diphenylethyl)piperidine (1,2-DEP), is such an example but detailed analytical data are less abundant. The present study describes the synthesis of diphenidine and its most obvious isomer,...
PCP or phencyclidine was discovered in 1956 and soon became a popular street drug. Dissociatives including PCP, ketamine, and dextromethorphan have been used non-medically for their mind-altering effects for over 60 years. Many of these compounds have also been used clinically and in legitimate research. At least 14 derivatives of PCP were sold for non-medical and illict use from the late 1960s...