| dc.description.abstract | 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; “ecstasy”) is a psychoactive drug structurally related to
other phenylisopropylamines acting as stimulants or hallucinogens in humans. Although MDMA has a
pharmacological identity of its own, the distinction of its acute effects from those of stimulants or even
hallucinogens is controversial. In this work, dose-response curves (0.25, 0.5, 1, 3, 5, and 10 mg/kg)
representing the acute in vivo effects of MDMA were compared with those of a structurally related
stimulant (methamphetamine, MA) and a hallucinogenic analogue (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine,
DOI) in a set of behavioral protocols in rats, including spontaneous psychomotor activity, anxiolytic/
anxiogenic-like effects and active avoidance conditioning responses. The behavioral profiles obtained
allowed us to differentiate among racemic MDMA, MA, and DOI at different dose ranges. In addition,
the evaluation of four MDMA analogues (1, 5, and 10 mg/kg) comprising two well-known MDMA
analogues (MDA [3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine] and MDE (N-ethyl-MDA, believed to substitute for
MDMA) and two other structural analogues (MDOH [N-hydroxy-MDA] and MMDA-2 [2-methoxy-
4,5-methylenedioxyamphetamine]) showed that none of these exactly resembles MDMA in their pharmacological
profiles, highlighting the unique character of this prototypical entactogen. In fact, their
effects exhibited similarities with the behavioral profiles of either MA or DOI, as well as novel profiles
in specific behavioral paradigms. | |
