FoundationalConceptsNeuroscience

Figure 9.2. Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. Sertiirner’s discovery had profound implications. It was the first time a chemical ...

CHz \ HO^0 OH Morphine By the latter half of the nineteenth century a pharmaceutical industry was emerging. Initially, their bus ...

N y \ 0 O HO O OH Yo O09 o€ H 3c CH 3 Morphine Diacetylmorphine Diacetylmorphine was found to be about twice as potent as morphi ...

Fentanyl Methadone Carfentanil Another example of a synthetic opioid is fentanyl, which is about 100 times more potent than morp ...

nists). All are now known to be GPCRs. The discovery of receptors that respond to chemicals found in pop- pies and produced by t ...

Cocaine. Erythroxylum coca, native to South America, is another example of a plant that has had a very long relationship with hu ...

productively and safely. The purified chemical has far more apparent poison qualities and is very prone to dysfunctional pattern ...

in coffee and tea, and for nicotine in tobacco—that the poison quali- ties of cocaine confer protection on the plant from being ...

as neurotransmitter. These drugs interact with reuptake transporters for norepinephrine or dopamine and cause them to become lea ...

the health of one’s body. The interaction of these drugs with the reward-reinforcement neural pathways in the brain is believed ...

ations of perception, including hallucinations. In 1956 the psychi- atrist Humphry Osmond (1917-2004), in correspondence with th ...

cally identified. Perhaps the most famous psychedelic chemical is LSD. Its profound psychoactive properties were not known until ...

—but it was a novel idea not so long ago. When molecular structural similarities were noticed between serotonin and LSD, it was ...

with Maria Sabina, Wasson connected with Albert Hofmann, and in 1958 Hofmann identified two psychedelically active chemicals fro ...

America. One Amazonian preparation combines a DMT-containing plant (usually Psychotria viridis) with another plant—the ayahuasca ...

impact on mental function is largely obscure. The effects of psychedelics can range from ecstatic to terrifying. They may facili ...

tempt within the power structures of society at the time. The first laws against LSD in the United States were passed in 1966. B ...

in humans. One molecule, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, has been identified as the major psychoactive chemical constituen ...

transmitter receptors, the CB receptor is a GPCR. A surprising piece of the story is that the CB receptor occurs pretty much eve ...

sions to be sufficiently similar in shape to some portion of the THC molecule, so that they all can act as agonists at the same ...