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Clinical data | |
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Trade names | EPH |
Routes of administration | Insufflation, vaporized, intravenous, intramuscular, rectal, oral, sublingual |
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Pharmacokinetic data | |
Bioavailability | Variable |
Protein binding | Unknown |
Metabolism | Hepatic transesterification of prodrugs methylphenidate and ethanol |
Excretion | Urine, sweat |
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Chemical and physical data | |
Formula | C15H21NO2 |
Molar mass | 247.338 g·mol−1 |
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Ethylphenidate (EPH) is a psychostimulant and a close analog of methylphenidate.
Ethylphenidate acts as both a dopamine reuptake inhibitor and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, meaning it effectively boosts the levels of the norepinephrine and dopamine neurotransmitters in the brain, by binding to, and partially blocking the transporter proteins that normally remove those monoamines from the synaptic cleft.
However, considering the close similarities between ethylphenidate and methylphenidate and the fact that methylphenidate, like cocaine, actually does not primarily act as a "classical" reuptake inhibitor, but rather as an "inverse agonist at the DAT" (also called a "negative allosteric modulator at the DAT"),[3] it is at least very likely that ethylphenidate also primarily acts as an inverse DAT agonist instead of (or at least only secondarily) as a classical reuptake inhibitor (which could be called a "competitive antagonist at the DAT" using a similar terminology as "negative allosteric modulator at the DAT", which per definition means that its mechanism is non-competitive).
In vivo experiments in animals demonstrate that cocaine's monoaminergic pharmacology is profoundly different from that of other prescribed monoamine reuptake inhibitors, with the exception of methylphenidate. These findings led us to conclude that the highly unusual stimulant profile of cocaine and related compounds, eg methylphenidate, is not mediated by monoamine reuptake inhibition alone. We describe the experimental findings which suggest cocaine serves as a negative allosteric modulator to alter the function of the dopamine reuptake transporter (DAT) and reverse its direction of transport. This results in a firing-dependent, retro-transport of dopamine into the synaptic cleft. [...] Because the physiological role of DAT is to remove dopamine from the synapse and the action of cocaine is the opposite of this, we have postulated that cocaine's effect is analogous to an inverse agonist.
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