CHARACTERIZING THE PHARMACOLOGICAL PROFILE OF MEPHEDRONE AND DETERMINING THE ABUSE LIABILITY MECHANISMS

Illicit drug use has been a growing concern over the past few decades. The rise in use of illegal drugs drove the government and law enforcement to aggressively tackle this problem and crackdown on the illicit use of drugs. However, this sparked a further interest in ‘legal highs.’ Before 2011, among the newly popular ‘legal highs’ was ‘Bath Salts.’ Cathinone is a monoamine alkaloid and the active ingredient found in the leaves of the khat plant. The psychoactive form of bath salts may contain a mixture of synthesized cathinones, including, 4-methyl-N-methcathinone (mephedrone), 3,4-methylenedioxy-N- methylcathinone (methylone) and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). These three are commonly found in bath salts. One of the major psychoactive ingredients in bath salts is mephedrone. Mephedrone grew in popularity due to its low price, accessibility, and the shortage of MDMA, thus making mephedrone the prime drug to sell as a ‘legal high’ up until 2011 when it became banned in the United S

Grantor dc:publisher

Temple University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Saber, Iman A.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Walker, Ellen A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Childers, Wayne E.
• Unterwald, Ellen M.
• Ward, Sara Jane
• Rawls, Scott M.
• Canney, Daniel J.

• Pharmacology
• Behavioral sciences
• Neurosciences
• Cathinone
• Dopamine
• Drug discrimination
• Self-administration
• Serotonin
• Sprague Dawley rat

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/3507

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/3507