Psychedelic drugs are known to produce their mental effects primarily by activating 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C serotonin receptors. This reference work presents new data on the binding affinity of twenty-five psychedelic drugs at fifty-one receptors, transporters, and ion channels, along with literature data on ten additional drugs. A new method normalizes affinity data to allow direct comparison across drugs. The findings show that psychedelic drugs, particularly phenylalkylamines, are not as selective as commonly thought, interacting with forty-two of forty-nine broadly tested sites. The thirty-five drugs display diverse interaction patterns across eighteen different receptors, suggesting that this diversity may underlie the qualitative differences in their subjective effects.
Psychedelic drugs, particularly phenylalkylamines, interact with many more receptor types than previously thought. New affinity data for 25 psychedelic drugs at 51 receptors, transporters, and ion channels, plus literature data for 10 additional drugs, show these compounds bind to 42 of 49 broadly assayed sites, not just the 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors. A new normalization method allows direct comparison of multi-receptor profiles across drugs. The 35 drugs display diverse interaction patterns with 18 different receptor classes, which may explain their qualitatively different mental effects. This diversity suggests psychedelics could be used as probes to study how various receptor systems contribute to human consciousness.