Further explorations into naturally-occurring isoquinolines: the aporphines
This week’s post will be a shorter one than usual but I wanted to do another medium-intensity dive into the mysterious ‘third’ or ‘fourth’ family of hallucinogenic substances, depending on your taxonomic preference. Like I mentioned in a previous post, isoquinolines are a relatively unexplored group of naturally-occurring molecules which are somewhat ubiquitous in many plant species. They’re understudied partially due to their relative abundance and partially due to a lack of interest in elucidating activity in humans. I specifically wanted to focus on a subfamily of isoquinolines, known as aporphine derivatives. I’ve already talked about one of them, namely glaucine! Glaucine is a 5-HT2A selective agonist with a number of other properties, including bronchodilating and anti-inflammatory effects. Okay everything makes sense so far. Selective 5-HT2A agonism is the bread-and-butter of...