Δ 9 -Tetrahydrocannabinol-like discriminative stimulus effects of five novel synthetic cannabinoids in rats
Abstract
Rationale and objectives
Novel synthetic cannabinoid compounds continue to appear in the market advertised as legal alternatives to marijuana and the older synthetic cannabinoid compounds which are now controlled substances. Most of these newer compounds have been found to act at CB1 receptors, so the purpose of this study was to study the abuse liability of these compounds.
Methods
Five of these compounds (BB-22, FUB-PB-22, 5F-AMB, NM2201, and MAB-CHMINACA) were tested for their ability to produce discriminative stimulus effects similar to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) in rats. The ability of the CB1 receptor inverse agonist rimonabant to antagonize the discriminative stimulus effects of the five test compounds was also tested.
Results
All five of the test compounds fully substituted for the discriminative stimulus effects of Δ9-THC at some dose, although MAB-CHMINACA produced an inverted U-shaped dose effect. Rimonabant fully antagonized the Δ9-THC-like discriminative stimulus effects of BB-22, 5F-AMB, NM2201, and MAB-CHMINACA but only reduced the effects of FUB-PB-22 to 40–50 % of Δ9-THC-appropriate responding.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that all five of the test compounds produced Δ9-THC-like effects and will likely have abuse liability similar to that of the controlled cannabinoid compounds.
Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-017-4783-6
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-017-4783-6
Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.
Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.