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Glennon RA, Young R, Dukat M, Cheng Y.
“Initial characterization of PMMA as a discriminative stimulus”.
Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1997;57(1-2):151-8.
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Abstract
The phenylisopropylamine PMMA or N-methyl-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane, a structural hybrid of paramethoxyamphetamine (PMA) and methamphetamine, has been previously shown to unexpectedly lack amphetamine-like or hallucinogen-like stimulus properties in animals. For example, in tests of stimulus generalization, neither a (1)amphetamine stimulus nor a DOM stimulus generalized to PMMA. It has also been shown, however, that stimulus generalization does occur in animals trained to discriminate the designer drug MDMA (“Ecstasy” or N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane) from vehicle. In order to further characterize this unique agent, we trained a group of six Sprague-Dawley rats to discriminate 1.25 mg/kg of PMMA (ED50 5 0.44 mg/kg) from saline vehicle. The PMMA stimulus failed to generalize to the phenylisopropylamine stimulant (1)amphetamine, or to the phenylisopropylamine hallucinogen DOM. Stimulus generalization occurred to (6)MDMA (ED50 5 1.32 mg/kg) and S(1)MDMA (ED50 5 0.48 mg/kg). Partial generalization occurred with R(2)MDMA, PMA, 3,4-DMA, and fenfluramine. The PMMA stimulus also generalized to the a-ethyl homolog of PMMA (EH/PMMA, ED50 5 1.29 mg/kg). Taken together, the results of these studies suggest that PMMA is an MDMA-like agent that lacks the amphetamine-like stimulant character of MDMA. These findings support our previous suggestion that PMMA be considered the structural parent of the MDMA-like family of designer drugs.
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