Synthesis and characterization of phencyclidine and his derivatives
January 1, 2010 C. Ilic, D. Marinkovic, V. Brkic et al.
Phencyclidine (PCP), an arylcyclohexylamine and dissociative anesthetic, was initially sold as a local anesthetic but withdrawn due to psychoactive addiction and harmful health effects. PCP acts as an antagonist of the NMDA receptor, causing antiglutamatergic hallucinations, while a structural derivative, BTCP, acts as an NMDA receptor agonist. The paper describes PCP's metabolism and methods for its identification and quantification in biological samples. Immunological tests can yield false positives due to interference from other abused substances, whereas gas chromatography combined with mass spectroscopy is the method of choice for examining biological samples for PCP presence.