The drugs of abuse market has been steadily increasing, and new classes of psychoactive substances appear every year, with potential addictive properties and side effects. Healthcare providers need to be aware of the toxicodynamic and toxicokinetic properties of these drugs for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of emergency cases. Serotonergic hallucinogens or psychedelics are strong psychoactive substances that act on the psychological state and influence the mood and several other processes in the brain. Among these, the use of the psychoactive natural substances has a long history in many cultures in sacred and religious rituals. Starting from the 1960s and 1970s, their popularity increased also as drugs of abuse. Serotoninergic hallucinogens include the classical psychedelic natural products containing N,N-dimethyltryptamine, psilocybin and psilocin, bufotenine, mescaline, lysergic acid amide, the synthetic hallucinogens as lysergic acid diethylamide, and the new hallucinogenic substances as tryptamine and phenethylamines derivatives, for which little is known regarding the toxicological properties and acute and chronic effects.
This chapter provides a comprehensive update on serotoninergic hallucinogens, starting from their history and focusing on their classification, toxicokinetics, toxicodynamics, acute and chronic effects.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780323852159000222
Preface
Toxicology is a multidisciplinary science where a vast interdisciplinary field of applications is continuously evolving
and developing, aiming to maintain and enhance the safety of global health and to assist and strengthen ongoing policy
regulatory frameworks.
Thinking outside the box, the concept of toxicology has successfully evolved throughout the years, as new research
techniques have been developed on preexisting methods and new data became available, resulting in a continuous
update of our current knowledge on many different toxicological aspects.
The development, improvement, and validation of such steps significantly improve our ability to further understand
the hazards and risks posed by chemicals and toxic stimuli that are detrimental to human health. In modern life today,
simultaneously or sequentially, we are all exposed to chemicals from diverse sources where a toxicological risk assessment has played a pivotal role in clarifying the mechanistic reasons and resulting outcomes.
This book focuses on crucial modern toxicology issues highlighting aspects such as toxicity methods and models,
testing tools and concepts, risk-assessment insights, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, biomaterials and nanomaterials,
special topics in toxicology, epidemiology, and public health, and clinical biomarkers, among others, providing an
“in-depth” review of today’s scientific stance, equally benefiting toxicological scientific communities and respective
regulatory bodies.
Written by renowned and leading experts in these scientific fields with whom I have been closely collaborating over
the past decade, this resource is dedicated to all toxicological risk assessments and multihealth impacts from different
exposures.
I am immensely proud of this collection of excellent studies and strongly believe that it will be a valuable asset to
all scientists working on risk assessment and a substantial contribution to modern toxicology.
The book’s success belongs to the authors of the chapters. The design of the book is based on the expertise and
knowledge of many collaborations and partners in research. Of course, there will always be room for improvement, but
the book provides an attempt at a holistic approach. The central philosophy is, “we know less than we think we know”
(Socrates).