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| Other names | 6-HO-DET; 6-OH-DET; 6-HDET; 6-Hydroxydiethyltryptamine; 6-Hydroxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine |
| Routes of administration | Intramuscular injection [1] [2] |
| Drug class | Serotonergic psychedelic; Hallucinogen |
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| Pharmacokinetic data | |
| Onset of action | 1 hour [1] [2] |
| Duration of action | 3–4 hours [1] [2] |
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| Chemical and physical data | |
| Formula | C14H20N2O |
| Molar mass | 232.327 g·mol−1 |
| 3D model (JSmol) | |
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6-Hydroxy-DET, or 6-HO-DET, also known as 6-hydroxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine, is a possible psychedelic drug of the tryptamine family related to dimethyltryptamine (DMT). [1] [3] It is the 6-hydroxy derivative of diethyltryptamine (DET). [1] [3] The drug is a notable metabolite of DET. [1] [3]
According to Alexander Shulgin in his book TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved), 6-HO-DET has been reported to be active at a dose of 10 mg by intramuscular injection. [1] [2] Lower doses of 1 to 2 mg were inactive, whereas 5 mg produced threshold effects. [2] The drug at a dose of 10 mg was said to produce psychedelic effects very similar to those with 60 mg diethyltryptamine (DET), with these effects starting after 1 hour and lasting 2 to 3 hours. [1] [2] Based on this report, the drug would be about 5 to 6 times more potent than DET in humans. [2] However, this report of 6-HO-DET's properties and effects is a second-hand early account in a single subject provided by Stephen Szara and colleagues and has not been replicated. [1] [2] Moreover, it is seemingly inconsistent with the inactivity of the closely related compounds 6-HO-DMT, 6-MeO-DMT, and 6-fluoro-DET. [1] [4] [5]
The effects of 6-HO-DET in animals have been studied. [2] [6] It was found to be much more potent than diethyltryptamine (DET) in terms of producing behavioral effects in rodents. [2] [6] [7]
Alexander Shulgin has noted that 6-HO-DET may have poor blood–brain barrier permeability due to its exposed hydroxyl group and consequent polarity analogously to bufotenin (5-HO-DMT). [1]
The predicted log P of 6-HO-DET is 3.1. [8] For comparison, the predicted log P of 6-HO-DMT is 2.4, [9] of 4-HO-DET is 2.7, [10] of 5-HO-DET is 1.9, [11] and of bufotenin (5-HO-DMT) is 1.2. [12]
Analogues of 6-HO-DET include diethyltryptamine (DET), 6-hydroxytryptamine (6-HT or 6-HO-T), 6-HO-DMT, 6-MeO-DMT, 6-fluoro-DET, psilocin (4-HO-DMT), 4-HO-DET, bufotenin (5-HO-DMT), 5-HO-DET, 5-HO-DPT, and 5-HO-DiPT, among others. [1]
6-HO-DET was first described in the scientific literature by Stephen Szara and colleagues by 1962. [2] It was identified as a major active metabolite of diethyltryptamine (DET). [3] [2] In addition, they found that excretion of 6-HO-DET with DET administration correlated with DET's hallucinogenic effects and that 6-HO-DET was much more potent than DET in humans based on preliminary observations. [2] Consequently, Szara and colleagues theorized that 6-hydroxylation of psychedelic tryptamines like dimethyltryptamine (DMT), DET, and α-methyltryptamine (AMT) was importantly involved in their hallucinogenic effects. [3] [2] [6] [13] [14] However, this hypothesis was later found to be incorrect and was abandoned. [14] [1] [3]
This correlation between metabolic transformation rates and psychological effect is suggestive. It strengthens our notion that metabolically formed 6-HDET most likely plays a role in producing the psychological effects. A more stringent test would be to give the metabolite directly to the same subjects, as was done in the animal experiments. Unfortunately we did not have enough synthetic 6-HDET to do extensive human studies, so the senior author tried it out himself. Both 1 and 2 mg. of 6-HDET had no noticeable effect. At 5 mg. there was only a very faint short-lasting perceptual disturbance. Then, on the fourth attempt, 10 mg. of 6-HDET was administered. No obvious effect on behavior occurred in the first hour, but then typical psychotomimetic disturbances began to appear. For the next 2 or 3 hours hallucinogenic effects were observed that were very similar to the effect of 60 mg. of DET. These experiments lead us to believe that 6-HDET in man is 5 to 6 times more active psychotropically than DET, but more extended studies will be necessary to establish the exact form of the relationship.
Much interest became concentrated on tryptamines substituted in the 6 position, when it was found that [DMT], [DET] (Szara, 1961b), and [AMT] (Szara, 1961a) were in part metabolized by hydroxylation at this position. The observation of a good correlation between the psychological changes associated with [DET] and the level of [6-HO-DET] excreted suggested that this hydroxylation product might indeed by the active form of the original drug (Szara et al., 1966). In fact, animal studies with [6-HO-DMT] suggested that the compound was indeed more potent that its parent (Szara and Hearst, 1962). However, animal studies with a number of N-methyl analogs were not consistent with this. [6-HO-5-MeO-DMT] appeared to be less potent than [5-MeO-DMT] (Taborsky et al., 1966) and [6-HO-5-MeO-T] was less potent than [5-MeO-T] (Taborsky et al., 1965). In animal studies (Uyeno, 1969) as well as human studies (Rosenberg et al., 1963), [6-HO-DMT] was inactive at 1 mg/kg, whereas [DMT] is clinically effective at this dosage. This metabolically available site (6 position) was blocked with a fluoro-group in a number of these N,N-dialkyltryptamines. [6-Fluoro-DMT] was again found to be less active than the parent [DMT] in animal studies (Kalir and Szara, 1966). However, clinical studies with [6-fluoro-DET] has shown that it produces most of the somatic effects of the comparison drug [DPT] without any of the psychological changes. It is proposed as an "active placebo" in controlling experiments with possible hallucinogenics (Faillace et al., 1967). The present evidence indicates that chemical substitution on the 6 position of the tryptamine system destroys the psychotomimetic potential of the compound.
Nevertheless, substitutions at positions 6 or 7 were reported to reduce or even abolish the binding ability to 5-HT2 receptors. For example, 6-OMe-DMT (35, Ki = 7300 nM) and 7-OMe-DMT (36, Ki = 5400 nM) exhibited reduced affinity compared to that of DMT (Ki = 1200 nM) at [3H]-ketanserin-labeled 5-HT2Rs.124