Many novel psychoactive substances (NPS) have entered the recreational drug scene in recent years, yet the problems they cause are similar to those found with established drugs. This article will debate the psychobiological effects of these newer and more traditional substances. It will show how they disrupt the same core psychobiological functions, so damaging well-being in similar ways. Every...
Benzylpiperazine has been designated as Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act by Drug Enforcement Administration. Benzylpiperazine is a piperazine derivative, elevates both dopamine and serotonin extracellular levels producing stimulatory and hallucinogenic effects, respectively, similar to methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). However, the comparative neurotoxic effects of...
Clinical data with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients recently stimulated interest on the potential therapeutic use of psychedelics in disorders characterized by maladaptive memories, including substance use disorders (SUD). The rationale for the use of MDMA in PTSD and SUD is being extended to a broader beneficial "psychedelic effect,"...
Mephedrone (MEPH) is a synthetic cathinone derivative with effects that mimic MDMA and/or cocaine. Our study in male Wistar rats provides detailed investigations of MEPH's and its primary metabolite nor-mephedrone's (nor-MEPH) pharmacokinetics and bio-distribution to four different substrates (serum, brain, lungs, and liver), as well as comparative analysis of their effects on locomotion [open...
Harm Reduction JournalJanuary 5, 2018Niamh Day, Joshua Criss, Benjamin J Griffiths et al.
Drug checking is a harm reduction strategy which allows users to check the content and purity of illicit drugs. Although drug checking has been trialled internationally, with demonstrated value as a harm reduction and health promotion strategy, the use of such services in Australia remains a contentious issue. This study aimed to investigate the proportion and patterns of illicit drug use among...
The current article addresses the question concerning Augustine’s mysticism from two perspectives: practice and theory. In the Confessiones, Augustine recounts how he reached an experience of God – the ‘Ostia-ecstasy’, shortly after his baptism. After an extensive state of the art on the debate of Augustine’s mysticism, the first part of this article studies Confessiones IX, 23–6, in which...
Since the mid-2000s, an unprecedented amount of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) have emerged on the recreational drug market and have since then gained popularity as alternatives to traditional drugs of abuse. Besides clinical case reports, the pharmacological profiling and assessment of toxicity in vitro provide valuable information on the mechanism of action and possible risks associated...
Brain temperature is a physiologic parameter that depends on metabolism-related intracerebral heat production and heat loss by cerebral circulation to the rest of the body and then to the external environment. Despite the importance of temperature as a metabolism-related parameter and a factor affecting neural activity and function, it is generally believed that brain temperature is a tightly...
5-HT2B receptor agonism causes cardiac valvulopathy, a condition characterized by thickening of the heart valves and as a result, regurgitation of blood within the heart. The anti-obesity drug fenfluramine, which was originally prescribed as an anorectic, was withdrawn from the market due to causing cardiac valvulopathy. Fenfluramine, after metabolism by N-dealkylation, produces the metabolite...
This dissertation investigates the different ways that musical Americans interpreted self-transcendent experiences—that is to say, experiences that involved a merger between subjective identity and forces, agents, or spaces that transcended the individual. Conventional histories of secularization suggest that the elevation of rational thought in modern Western culture inexorably invalidated...