Citation

Davidson C, Schifano F. Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry 2015; 64: 267-274.

Affiliation

School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.pnpbp.2015.07.010

PMID

26232510

Abstract

Over the last decade there has been an explosion of new drugs of abuse, so called legal highs or novel psychoactive substances (NPS). Many of these abused drugs have unknown pharmacology, but their biological effects can be anticipated from their molecular structure and possibly also from online user reports. When considered with the findings that some prescription medications are increasingly abused and that some abused drugs have been tested clinically one could argue that there has been a blurring of the line between drugs of abuse and clinically used drugs. In this review we examine these legal highs/NPS and consider whether, based on their known or predicted pharmacology, some might have the potential to be clinically useful in CNS disorders.

Language: en