Determination of psychoactive substances (PAS) and/or their metabolites in surface waters is crucial for environmental risk assessment, and disclosure enantiomeric fractions (EF) allows discrimination between consumption, direct disposal, synthesis pathways. The aim this study was to develop validate an indirect method by gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry (GC–MS) based on derivatizat...

Malignant hyperthermia is a pharmacogenic disease and is manifest by a hypermetabolic crisis with tachycardia, ventricular ectopy, metabolic acidosis, and a rapid rise in body temperature. "Ecstasy", 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), is a semisynthetic amphetamine, the recreational use of which has increased in recent years. Severe reactions to MDMA have been noted in the past, includin...

cooling. For the patient who is taken acutely ill medical management is urgent and includes control of convulsions, measurement of core temperature, rapid rehydration, and possibly the use of dantrolene and active cooling measures.7 Some people taking the drug for the first time find the effects disturbing and may complain to their general practitioner of paranoia, hallucinations, insomnia, tac...

The amphetamine analogue 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ‘ecstasy’) is widely abused as a recreational drug due to its unique psychological effects. Of interest, MDMA causes long-lasting deficits in neurochemical and histological markers of the serotonergic neurons in the brain of different animal species. Such deficits include the decline in the activity of tryptophan hydroxylase in p...

Kainic acid (KA) causes seizures and neuronal loss in the hippocampus. The present study investigated whether a recreational schedule of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) favours the development of a seizure state in a model of KA-induced epilepsy and potentiates the toxicity profile of KA (20 or 30mg/kg). Adolescent male C57BL/6 mice received saline or MDMA t.i.d. (s.c. every 3h), on 1d...

Methamphetamine (MeAmp) abuse has recently experienced a resurgence and approaches to the treatment of its addiction similar to those used with cocaine have been considered. As the treatment regimes are likely to use drugs whose metabolism is related to that of MeAmp, studies were initiated to establish the enzymology of the fate of MeAmp. This report describes investigations of the role of CYP...