Alpha-Methyltryptamine (AMT) - Russian antidepressant turned American hallucinogen
- synthetic tryptamine monoamine oxidase inhibitor invented by the Soviets (they called it Indopan) in the 1960s to treat people with depression
- in addition to alleviating depression, it does other exciting things that have lead to its recreational use:
- at lower doses it acts as a stimulant
- at higher doses it causes you to hallucinate
- was essentially legal in the USA and available for purchase online prior to April 2003, at which point the DEA had it designated a Schedule 1 controlled substance because a college student died while on it
- like psilocybin and DMT, acts at serotonin receptors (specifically, the 5-HT2 subtype) in the brain and disrupts serotonin breakdown (since it inhibits monoamine oxidase)
- also called IT-290 and 3-IT
- is closely related to alpha-ethyltryptamine (also called etryptamine, α-ethyltryptamine, α-ET, AET, and Monase), which has an ethyl group in place of a methyl group, and interestingly was initially developed in the USA as an antidepressant!
- AET is not a hallucinogen, but instead is considered to be an empathogen/entactogen like MDMA (ecstasy, E)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphamethyltryptamine
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-ethyltryptamine
2 chemically inspired comments:
Don't forget that when they were studying IT-290 for possible use as an antidepressant (har), one of the side effects was listed as "inappropriate smiling".
Funny side effects are the best.
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