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Powerful hallucinogen could bring relief to chronic itching
People who suffer from chronic itching say it's more unbearable than pain. I'll never forget a 2008 story called The Itch in The New Yorker. It's about a woman whose scalped itched so much that "She had scratched through her skull during the nightand all the way into her brain."
Chemical and Engineering News reports that a compound in the popular psychedelic plant Salvia divinorum was found to contain a compound that is found to provide itch relief to mice.
Snip:Salvinorin A, a hallucinogen produced by the Mexican plant Salvia divinorum, holds promise for treating itch and pain because it activates the -opioid receptor while avoiding the -opioid receptor, a sister receptor thats been associated with opioid abuse. Chemists have tried to synthesize salvinorin A so that they could alter the structure to sidestep the compounds psychoactive effects while preserving its analgesic properties. But salvinorin As scaffold has been challenging to recreate.Now, a team of scientists at the California and Florida branches of Scripps Research Institute, as well as at the University of Southern California, report a 10-step total synthesis of 20-norsalvinorin A (ChemRxiv 2017, DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.5318188). The compound differs from salvinorin A by a single methyl group and binds to the -opioid receptor with an affinity similar to that of the natural product. When given to mice, it also provides itch relief.
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/htLtYg4wIBY/powerful-hallucinogen-could-be.html