Hallucinations are usually explained by some combination of three factors, none of which are mutually exclusive: loss of sensory or perceptual ability, abnormally increased neural activity, or cognitive alterations –. Animal studies show that MDA shares with MDMA potential to cause long-term serotonergic neurotoxicity. Early reports suggest MDA may have more consistent emotional effects than hallucinogens such as LSD and animal drug discrimination studies confirm that MDA has both typical hallucinogenic (LSD-like) effects as well as unusual effects similar to those of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), , which some consider to represent a novel class of pharmacological agent (“entactogen” ). Despite appearing in illicit drug preparations, MDA has not been studied in humans in over 30 years, –. Similarly, MDA was found in 0.6% of pills submitted to Forensic Science South Australia (FSSA) for testing by South Australia Police (SAPOL) over a 6-month period. For example, in a sample of 107 illicit Ecstasy tablets, Baggott and colleagues found that 6.5% contained MDA. Some of what is sold as “Ecstasy” contains MDA instead of MDMA. MDA has been used non-medically since the 1960s and was scheduled as a controlled substance in the US in 1970. MDA is a hallucinogen that acts as a serotonergic 5-HT2A receptor agonist and releases monoamines by interacting with monoamine plasmalemmal transporters –. In order to study drug-induced visual hallucinations, we administered 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA, tenamfetamine, “Love Drug”) to healthy drug-experienced volunteers. Few studies have attempted to address the mechanisms of these visual changes after hallucinogens. Pseudo-hallucinations can occur both with the eyes closed (closed-eye visions, CEVs) and open (open-eye visions, OEVs). Visual changes include altered form and depth perception, prolonged afterimages, motion-processing impairments, vivid pseudo-hallucinations, and, only very rarely, actual hallucinations in which insight into the non-veridical nature of the experience is impaired –. Serotonergic hallucinogens -such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin- produce a bewildering variety of visual phenomena –. None of those organizations had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Robertson is supported by NIH EY016975 and a Merit grant from the Veterans Administration. Baggott was supported by the Beckley Foundation. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This project was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) DA016776 and NIH/National Center for Research Resources UCSF-CTSI UL1 RR024131. Received: Accepted: OctoPublished: December 2, 2010Ĭopyright: © 2010 Baggott et al. PLoS ONE 5(12):Įditor: Antonio Verdejo García, University of Granada, Spain Citation: Baggott MJ, Siegrist JD, Galloway GP, Robertson LC, Coyle JR, Mendelson JE (2010) Investigating the Mechanisms of Hallucinogen-Induced Visions Using 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA): A Randomized Controlled Trial in Humans.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |