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Anderson GM 3d, Braun G, Braun U, Nichols DE, Shulgin AT. 
“Absolute configuration and psychotomimetic activity”. 
NIDA Res Monogr. 1978;22:8-15.
Abstract
The purpose of this report is not to explain or theorize on the persistence of activity following the N-methylation of MDA or on the unexpected reversal of activity assignment ot the optical isomers. It is, rather, to present these findings and to let them provoke the necessary changes in receptor-site theory that must be made. Since the effects of MDA to some extent, and of MDMA to a very large extent, are far removed from that constellation of symptoms usually associated with psychotomimetic drugs such as TMA, DOM, and LSD, it is appealing to explain the difference of assymetric requirements in accord with these differences in qualitative responses, and to conclude that there is some different receptor site being acted upon in this case. There is no insistence that all psychotomimetic agents act by a single mechanism. It has been proposed (Onen et al. 1974) that hallucinogenic drugs might be useful classified either as direct acting or as indirect acting releasing agents. Most psychotomimetics appear to act as direct serotonin agonists, but materials such as para-methoxyphenylisopropylamine (PMA) and MDA do not fit this model quantitatively (Nichols et al. 1977). Although no human studies have been conducted with the isomers of PMA, both PMA and MDA have been demonstrated to be indirect acting sympathomimetics (Nichols et al. 1974; Paton et al. 1975).
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