Biomedical analysis of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) of natural origin

Publication date: Available online 30 October 2019Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical AnalysisAuthor(s): Alfredo Fabrizio Lo Faro, Annagiulia Di Trana, Nunzia La Maida, Adriano Tagliabracci, Raffaele Giorgetti, Francesco Paolo BusardòAbstractNew psychoactive substances (NPS) can be divided into two main groups: synthetic molecules and active principles of natural origin. With respect to this latter group, a wide range of alkaloids contained in plants, mainly from Asia and South America, can be included in the class of NPS of natural origin. The majority NPS of natural origin presents stimulant and/or hallucinogenic effects (e.g. Catha edulis and Ayahuasca, respectively) while few of them show sedative and relaxing properties (e.g. kratom). Few information is available in relation to the analytical identification of psychoactive principles contained in the plant material. Moreover, to our knowledge, scarce data are present in literature, about the characterization and quantification of the parent drug in biological matrices from intoxication and fatality cases. In addition, the metabolism of natural active principles has not been yet fully investigated for most of the psychoactive substances from plant material. Consequently, their identification is not frequently performed and produced metabolites are often unknown.To fill this gap, we reviewed the currently available analytical methodologies for the identification and quantification of NPS of natural origin in ...
Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research