The use of new psychoactive substances (NPS) as adulterants has received little attention in the literature. In this paper, results from Energy Control's drug checking service documenting the use of NPS as adulterants of controlled drugs are presented, and some reflections about possible explanations for this new phenomenon, potential risks for users, and challenges that it poses are discussed....
Sixteen phenethylamines are now included in Schedules I and II of the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Most of the ring-substituted compounds are in Schedule I, whereas 2C-B, amphetamine, and methamphetamine are listed in Schedule II. Substances in Schedule IV (e.g. benzphetamine) are now regarded as obsolete pharmaceutical products. They all represent the 'old...
This article describes the teenage vision of the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) that humanity's future would be aided by the therapeutic and spiritual potential of psychedelic substances. The article traces the trajectory of MAPS from inception in 1986 to its present, noting future goals with respect to research, outreach, and harm reduction. MAPS...
Pharmacological treatments are available for alcohol, nicotine, and opioid dependence, and several drugs for cannabis-related disorders are currently under investigation. On the other hand, psychostimulant abuse and dependence lacks pharmacological treatment. Mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons mediate the motivation to use drugs and drug-induced euphoria, and psychostimulants (cocaine,...
Substances known as psychedelics, hallucinogens and entheogens have been employed in ethnomedical traditions for thousands of years, but after promising uses in the 1950's and 1960's they were largely prohibited in medical treatment and human research starting in the 1970's as part of the fallout from the war on drugs. Nonetheless, there are a number of studies which suggest that these...
We investigated brain functional connectivity comparing no-task resting to breath counting (a meditation exercise but given as task without referring to meditation). Functional connectivity computed as EEG coherence between head-surface data suffers from localization ambiguity, reference dependence, and overestimation due to volume conduction. Lagged coherence between intracortical model...
Subanesthetic doses of ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) antagonist, have a rapid antidepressant effect which lasts for up to 2 weeks. However, the neurobiological mechanism regarding this effect remains unclear. In the present study, the effects of subanesthetic doses of ketamine on serotonergic systems in conscious monkey brain were investigated. Five young monkeys underwent four...
Synthetic indole-derived cannabinoids have become commonly used recreational drugs and continue to be abused despite their adverse consequences. As compounds that were identified early in the epidemic (e.g., naphthoylindoles) have become legally banned, new compounds have appeared on the drug market. Two tetramethylcyclopropyl ketone indoles, UR-144...
The hypothesis that dreaming is involved in off-line memory processing is difficult to test because major methodological issues have to be addressed, such as dream recall and the effect of remembered dreams on memory. It would be fruitful--in addition to studying the ancient art of memory (AAOM) in a scanner--to study the dreams of persons who use AAOM regularly.
The expression of consciousness and the site of memory storage within the brain are unknown despite over a century of intense empirical scrutiny. Recent anatomical studies show that human protoplasmic astrocytes form innumerable uniform polyhedral tessellating domains that are arranged three-dimensionally. This complex geometric structure provides a matrix for seamless and three-dimensional...