Novel psychoactive substances: What educators need to know.

Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are synthetic, psychoactive drugs that are generally not under international regulatory control. NPS are frequently sold as alternatives to classic "street drugs" such as ecstasy or LSD. However, little is known about their pharmacology and toxicity and they therefore pose unknown health risks. Further, risk for harms are elevated because users often do not know what they are taking, and therefore cannot predict dose, potency, or other potential properties.

Central ghrelin signaling mediates the metabolic response of C57BL/6 male mice to chronic social defeat stress.

Chronic stressors promote metabolic disturbances, including obesity and metabolic syndrome. Ghrelin, a peptide that promotes appetite and the accumulation of adipose tissue, is also secreted in response to stressors to protect the brain and peripheral tissues from the effects of these stressors. Here we demonstrate that elevated ghrelin levels produced by chronic exposure to social stress are associated with increased caloric intake and body weight gain in male C57BL mice. In contrast, stressed mice lacking ghrelin receptors (GHSR KO mice) or C57BL mice receiving chronic intracerebroventricular delivery of the ghrelin receptor antagonist [d-Lys(3)]-GHRP-6 show attenuated weight gain and feeding responses under the same social stress paradigm. Interestingly, stressed GHSR KO mice showed depleted sc and intrascapular brown fat depots, whereas stressed young wild-type mice did not. In old wild-type mice, chronic social defeat increased visceral and intrascapular brown fat depots in association with increases in obesity markers like hyperleptinemia and hyperinsulinemia along with increased hypothalamic expression of neuropeptide Y and Agouti related peptide. Importantly, the elevated expression of these peptides persisted least for 2 weeks after cessation of the stressor regimen. In contrast, old GHSR KO mice did not show these alterations after chronic social defeat. These results suggest that ghrelin plays an important role in the metabolic adaptations necessary to meet the energetic demands posed by stressors, but chronic exposure to stress-induced ghrelin elevations ultimately could lead to long lasting metabolic dysfunctions.

Ghrelin-deficient mice have fewer orexin cells and reduced cFOS expression in the mesolimbic dopamine pathway under a restricted feeding paradigm.

Ghrelin is an orexigenic stomach peptide previously found to be important for the full display of anticipatory locomotor activity and hypothalamic neuronal activation that precedes a daily scheduled meal in mice. Ghrelin is also important for food-related motivation and seems to have direct effects in the mesocorticolimbic dopamine reward system. Here we hypothesized that neuronal activation in reward-related areas in anticipation of a scheduled meal could be mediated by elevated ghrelin induced by scheduled feeding, and therefore this would be attenuated in ghrelin receptor knock-out (GHSR KO) animals. We found that this was indeed the case for the ventral tegmental area and the shell, but not the core, of the nucleus accumbens. In addition, our results show a reduction in the proportion of activated orexin-immunoreactive (IR) neurons in GHSR KO animals in anticipation of the scheduled meal in comparison to the proportion of activated orexin neurons in wild type (WT) mice. Interestingly we observed that both GHSR and ghrelin KO mice had fewer orexin-IR cells than their WT littermates suggesting that lack of ghrelin or sensitivity to ghrelin may play a role in the development of the orexin system. Our data also suggest that ghrelin may mediate food anticipation, in part, by stimulating both the orexin system and the mesolimbic reward system.

Altered metabolic and neurochemical responses to chronic unpredictable stressors in ghrelin receptor-deficient mice.

Ghrelin, a hormone produced by the stomach, is generally associated with feeding responses and the regulation of food intake. Recent evidence, however, suggests that ghrelin is also a stress hormone, given that it is released following acute and chronic stressors. The present study examined the role of ghrelin in producing normal metabolic and neurochemical responses to chronic stress. This was achieved by examining these responses in mice with targeted deletions of the ghrelin receptor gene (GHSR KO mice), and comparing them with the same responses in their wild-type (WT) littermates. As expected, WT stressed mice decreased their caloric intake, body weight gain and caloric efficiency while maintaining adiposity. GHSR KO mice, however, did not show these alterations despite having normal glucocorticoid responses to stress. In parallel with these changes, chronic unpredictable stress caused changes in norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin in a number of brain regions. Of these, norepinephrine neurotransmission in the arcuate nucleus and prefrontal cortex was differentially altered in GHSR KO mice. Within the nucleus acumbens, dopamine utilization was increased in WT mice but not in GHSR KO mice. Finally, there were strain differences in serotonin neurotransmission that may explain interstrain body weight and adiposity differences. These results suggest that the metabolic changes necessary to deal with the energetic challenge presented by repeated exposure to stressors do not occur in GHSR KO mice, and they are discussed within the context of the potential vulnerability to stress-induced pathology.

Reduced anticipatory locomotor responses to scheduled meals in ghrelin receptor deficient mice.

Ghrelin, an orexigenic hormone produced by the stomach, is secreted in anticipation of scheduled meals and in correlation with anticipatory locomotor activity. We hypothesized that ghrelin is directly implicated in stimulating locomotor activity in anticipation of scheduled meals. To test this hypothesis, we observed 24 h patterns of locomotor activity in mice with targeted mutations of the ghrelin receptor gene (GHSR KO) and wild-type littermates, all given access to food for 4 h daily for 14 days. While wild type (WT) and GHSR KO mice produced increases in anticipatory locomotor activity, anticipatory locomotor activity in GHSR KO mice was attenuated (P<0.05). These behavioral measures correlated with attenuated levels of Fos immunoreactivity in a number of hypothalamic nuclei from GHSR KO placed on the same restricted feeding schedule for 7 days and sacrificed at ZT4. Interestingly, seven daily i.p. ghrelin injections mimicked hypothalamic Fos expression patterns to those seen in mice under restricted feeding schedules. These data suggest that ghrelin acts in the hypothalamus to augment locomotor activity in anticipation of scheduled meals.

New inhibitors of the ubiquinol oxidase of higher plant mitochondria.

A screen has been performed of possible inhibitors of the ubiquinol oxidase of higher plant mitochondria by assaying their effects on cyanide-insensitive NADH oxidase of mitochondria of Arum maculatum. A number of compounds which have powerful inhibitory effects have been identified. Potent inhibition was found with compounds related to the previously described n-propyl gallate, but with the n-propyl sidechain replaced with alkyl chains of greater hydrophobicity. Titration of a range of partial reactions showed that the inhibitors act specifically on the ubiquinol oxidase. The concentrations of inhibitor required are dependent on the respiratory substrate and on the amount of mitochondria used in the assay. Octyl gallate also proved to be a potent inhibitor of the ubiquinol oxidase in tobacco cell suspensions. A second class of compounds which strongly inhibit cyanide-insensitive NADH oxidation is aurachin C and its analogues. Compounds related to aurachin D are much less effective. Titrations of a range of partial reactions indicate that inhibition is caused by a direct action on the ubiquinol oxidase. However, both types of aurachins also act strongly at the Qi site of the cytochrome bc1 complex, as already known to be the case in other systems, and so they are of more limited value for studies of the ubiquinol oxidase. Titration of the oxidation of NADH via the ubiquinol oxidase in a purified mitochondrial fraction from the spadices of Arum maculatum with octyl gallate gave a half-maximal effect at a concentration of around 6 nM when the protein concentration was 14 micrograms ml-1. A similar titre was obtained with a decyl derivative of aurachin C. This allowed us to estimate an upper limit for the concentration of ubiquinol oxidase in these mitochondria of 0.72 +/- 0.15 nmol mg-1 protein, or a ratio of ubiquinol oxidase/cytochrome oxidase of about 15 +/- 7:1. The measurements also provide a minimal turnover number for the ubiquinol oxidase of 186 +/- 42 electrons.s-1. Titration of the ubiquinol oxidase in soybean cotyledon mitochondria with these compounds gave the concentration of inhibitor required to elicit 50% of the maximum observed effect (I50) values about one order of magnitude higher than those found with Arum mitochondria, and again the values depended on the respiratory substrate. An explanation for the variation in I50 values may be found in terms of differences in oxidase concentrations in the different mitochondrial membranes and in the differences in rate-controlling steps with substrates of different activities.