This page shows what was measured, who it was measured in, and what that does not settle.
What Mephedrone does in the body
In rats it raises both dopamine and serotonin in the reward circuitry, with the serotonin effect larger.
Mephedrone is taken into nerve terminals by the same transporters that normally recover dopamine and serotonin, and once inside it runs them backwards, pumping the transmitters out. That is the MDMA mechanism, not the cocaine mechanism — cocaine simply blocks the transporters. What it does not do, in the direct comparison with MDMA, is destroy serotonin terminals: three doses produced the same hyperthermia and no lasting change in brain amines, where MDMA produced lasting depletion.
Why people take it. An unapproved synthetic stimulant formerly sold legally in the United Kingdom.
What happened in people
In rats it raised body temperature but, unlike MDMA, did not cause lasting loss of measured brain signalling chemicals.
✓ Reviewed first-read answer
Where this came from
A person wrote this and a reviewer approved it against this exact record. It carries no effect size.
A reviewer approved this against this record. The reviewed-claim record carrying the exact population and effect size does not exist yet.
No source is stored against this line.
The limit that matters most
A rat brain finding does not establish safety during repeated human use.
Where it acts
Monoamine transporters on dopaminergic and serotonergic terminals, principally in the nucleus accumbens where the microdialysis measurements were made
Kind of result
The kind of result is not recorded
Supervision
RNAWiki has not recorded a supervision or regulatory status for this substance.
What the registries record it as
The substance registry classes this as chemical.
FDA substance registry · 8BA8T27317 · read 2026-08-29
Where each sentence above came from
A person wrote this explanation into the record, with the studies named in the path below.
A reviewer approved this sentence against this exact record and its sources.
The limit a reviewer approved as the one that matters most here.
The four opening statements run to 121 words.
Words this page uses
Four words worth knowing first
Chosen from what this page shows, with each one explained before the word it depends on.
Biomarker
A biomarker is a number from a test that stands in for something about health.
A picture of it, and where the picture fails
A biomarker is like a fuel gauge.
Where that stops being true. A gauge is wired to the tank. Many biomarkers are only loosely tied to health.
What people get wrong. A better number is read as a better life. Several medicines improved a number and helped nobody.
A measurable indicator used as a substitute for a clinical outcome of interest.
Stand-in result
A stand-in result is a number measured because the real result takes too long.
A picture of it, and where the picture fails
It is like judging a journey by the speedometer rather than by arriving.
Where that stops being true. Speed does predict arrival. Many stand-in results do not predict the real one.
What people get wrong. A stand-in result is often reported as the result itself.
A surrogate endpoint substituted for a clinical endpoint, valid only where the substitution has been shown to hold.
What happened in people◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What happened in people
Each card is one study: the exact question it asked, who was in it, and whether it showed what it set out to show.
Transporter substrate profile, extracellular monoamine release, and long-term tissue amine content after repeated dosing
✓ The study showed what it set out to show
Who was studied
Baumann et al. 2012 comparative pharmacology of mephedrone and methylone (NIDA)
How many people
0
Study design
Preclinical in vitro and rat in vivo
Compared against
Not recorded for this study
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
What was found
Non-selective transporter substrates comparable to MDMA; dose-related dopamine and 5-HT increase with 5-HT larger; hyperthermia without long-term amine change, against persistent 5-HT depletion with MDMA
Repeated elsewhere
Replicated
What this does not prove. Meeting one endpoint in one population does not carry to other goals or other people.
The limits of this study, and where it came from
Main limit. Three-dose subcutaneous protocol in rats does not model human session redosing. The authors state that consequences of repeated exposure warrant further study and that the addictive-potential hypothesis awaits confirmation.
How far it carries. This study is recorded from the curated record, not from the registry match.
Form and route. Oral or intranasal powder and capsules
Interval reported. Not recorded in this summary
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim.
Pattern of clinical toxicity following self-reported mephedrone use
✓ The study showed what it set out to show
Who was studied
Wood et al. 2011 London emergency department case series
How many people
15
Study design
Clinical case series
Compared against
Not recorded for this study
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
What was found
Agitation 53.3%, tachycardia 40%, systolic hypertension 20%, seizures 20%; benzodiazepines in 20%; all discharged without sequelae
Repeated elsewhere
Replicated
What this does not prove. Meeting one endpoint in one population does not carry to other goals or other people.
The limits of this study, and where it came from
Main limit. Exposure was self-reported and not analytically confirmed, so co-ingestion and misidentification cannot be excluded. The widely reported cool or blue peripheries were not observed in any patient.
How far it carries. This study is recorded from the curated record, not from the registry match.
Form and route. Oral or intranasal powder and capsules
Interval reported. Not recorded in this summary
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim.
RNAWiki holds 2 written-up human studies for this substance, each with the question it asked.
How we know it
Each card names the study, the number of people and what the study set out to measure.
What this does not prove
These summaries were written by a person and have not been signed off as reviewed claims.
Why it matters
A study that failed is as informative as one that worked, and both are here.
What we still do not know
No reviewed claim exists, so no exact population, effect size or interval is published yet.
What happened in people◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
How close this is to real life
The top step is something a person would feel or care about. The bottom is a guess from software. Filled steps are where evidence exists for this substance.
□Living longer, or avoiding a major eventNo evidence recorded. Death, a heart attack, a stroke, a hospital stay.No registered study measures this.
□What a body can do day to dayNo evidence recorded. Walking, dressing, breathing, recovering.No registered study measures this.
□Measured performanceNo evidence recorded. How much was lifted, how far was run, how fast.No registered study measures this.
□Symptoms and quality of lifeNo evidence recorded. Pain, tiredness, mood, sleep, as the person rated it.No registered study measures this.
■A number that stands in for healthEvidence recorded. Cholesterol, blood sugar, bone density. A stand-in, not the thing itself.1 registered measure of this kind.
■A step measured inside a personEvidence recorded. Something measured in human tissue or human cells.A human record sits on the stored organism ladder.
□AnimalsNo evidence recorded. Mice, rats, dogs. Useful for ideas, not proof about people.No animal record is stored.
□Cells in a dishNo evidence recorded. Cells or chemistry on a bench, far from a whole body.No cell or bench record is stored.
□A guess from softwareNo evidence recorded. Nobody measured it. RNAWiki never publishes one as a finding.RNAWiki stores no prediction for this record. Software can suggest a link. RNAWiki does not publish one as a finding.
Higher on these steps means closer to something a person would feel. It does not mean better done.
What it changes in the body◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
The path through the body
From what a person takes to what changes. A solid line is a step measured in people. A dashed line is a step nobody has measured that way.
Start
Mephedrone
What a person takes: Oral or intranasal powder and capsules.
The measurement behind this step
Sold as loose powder or in capsules, originally in high-street and online shops labelled as plant food or bath salts and not for human consumption — a labelling convention that exempted the product from consumer-safety requirements while leaving it purchasable. The short duration of effect drives repeated redosing within a session, which is the pattern no animal protocol in the literature models.
Getting in
Swallowed or insufflated
Taken as powder or in capsules. The short duration is what drives the repeated redosing characteristic of this drug.
╌╌Measured in animals. A result in animals says what to test next. It does not say what happens in people.
The measurement behind this step
Oral or intranasal administration of the hydrochloride salt. In the rat work, intravenous doses of 0.3 and 1.0 mg/kg were used for microdialysis and repeated subcutaneous doses of 3.0 and 10.0 mg/kg for the neurotoxicity arm.
It does not sit outside blocking the transporter — it is taken through it, into the cell.
──Measured in people. Written by a person from the study named beside the step. Not signed off as a reviewed claim.
The measurement behind this step
Substrate-type interaction at the plasma-membrane dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine transporters, non-selective and comparable to MDMA in potency and selectivity, as opposed to the blocker mechanism of cocaine.
Reverses the transporters and releases transmitter
Once inside, it makes the transporters run backwards, pushing dopamine and serotonin out into the synapse.
╌╌Described, with no measurement named. No measurement is named for this step, so it is drawn as an unconfirmed link.
The measurement behind this step
Transporter-mediated efflux producing dose-related increases in extracellular dopamine and 5-HT in the nucleus accumbens, with the serotonin effect larger than the dopamine effect at both doses tested.
Clinically the picture is agitation, fast heart rate, raised blood pressure and, in a fifth of one emergency series, seizures.
╌╌Measured in animals. A result in animals says what to test next. It does not say what happens in people.
The measurement behind this step
Agitation 53.3%, tachycardia 40%, systolic hypertension 20% and seizures 20% across 15 emergency presentations; benzodiazepines required in 20%. Repeated dosing produced hyperthermia in rats at both dose levels tested.
But no lasting amine depletion in the animal comparison
After the drug had cleared, brain serotonin and dopamine were unchanged — unlike after MDMA, which left persistent depletion.
╌╌Described, with no measurement named. No measurement is named for this step, so it is drawn as an unconfirmed link.
The measurement behind this step
No long-term change in cortical or striatal amines after three subcutaneous doses at 3.0 and 10.0 mg/kg, against robust persistent cortical and striatal 5-HT depletion after MDMA at 2.5 and 7.5 mg/kg in the same protocol. The dissociation from hyperthermia is the finding.
No suggested links are held for this record, so nothing is hidden from this path.
What we know
The record describes 5 steps from taking it to an effect in a person.
How we know it
Each step names the study behind it in the technical detail beside it.
What this does not prove
A change inside the body is a reason to look. It is not a result in a person.
Why it matters
A reader can see exactly where the chain stops being measured in people.
What we still do not know
No reviewed claim binds any of these steps to a named population.
What it would be like to take◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
Felt, measured, or meaningful
Three different things that get called the same word. Registered studies measured all three, and mixing them is how a blood test becomes a health claim.
Felt
Things a person could notice without a test.
No registered study measured anything of this kind.
Measured
Things only a test, a scale or a device shows.
changes in blood pressure
Meaningful
Things that change how a life goes, not only a number.
No registered study measured anything of this kind.
A registered study says what someone planned to measure. It does not say what they found. A number moving is not the same as a life going better. The two are shown apart here.
Felt, but not shown to help. A person notices a change. No study showed it leads anywhere good.
Measured, but not felt. A number moves. The person notices nothing. Both can be true.
Measured, but not shown to matter. A number moves in the good direction. Nobody showed that lives went better.
Matters, but takes years. The result that counts may take longer than anyone would keep watching.
What is missing or unclear◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
Were people like you studied?
RNAWiki cannot tell whether a study fits you. It can show who was in it, and where the result stops carrying.
Who was studied
People similar to this profile were included.
In 2009 and 2010, a very large number of people in the UK who could buy it in shops. Since scheduling, use has continued in specific settings including chemsex.
Who is missing from the studies
Which groups were under-represented in the studies has not been recorded for this substance. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children, older adults, and people with liver or kidney conditions are commonly excluded from trials; nothing here says whether they were.
Where the result stopped carrying
Both the UK ban and the US temporary scheduling preceded publication of the study establishing the drug's mechanism of action
The behavioural proxy normally used for dopaminergic stimulant activity disagreed with the direct neurochemical measurement for this compound
This is a scope explorer, not a diagnosis engine.
It shows who was studied so you can see whether people similar to you were included.
RNAWiki cannot tell whether a study fits you. It can show who was in it.
What it would be like to take◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
Why it might seem to do nothing
A real effect and a noticed effect are different things. These are the recorded reasons the two come apart.
It was studied for a different goal
The studies measured something else entirely.
On this record: Some registered studies measured things that match no goal on this page.
It was studied in different people
The people in the studies were not much like the reader.
On this record: Which groups were under-represented in the studies has not been recorded for this substance. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children, older adults, and people with liver or kidney conditions are commonly excluded from trials; nothing here says whether they were.
The evidence may simply be wrong
Small early studies often do not hold up.
On this record: RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
Other reasons RNAWiki checked and found nothing for (10)
A different form was studied
The studied form is not the form on the shelf. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
There was nothing to correct
Where a level is already normal, topping it up may change nothing. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
Something else had to happen too
In the studies it was paired with training, a diet or another treatment. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
The change is too small to feel
A real change can still sit below what a person notices. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
Day-to-day swing hides it
Sleep, food, stress and time of day move most numbers more than this would. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
Not enough time yet
The studies ran longer than the person has waited. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
It was not taken as studied
Missed days change the result, and studies count them. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
Something else changed at the same time
Two changes at once cannot be told apart afterwards. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
The product may not be what it says
Contents of a sold product are not always what the label states. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
No recorded reason
RNAWiki has nothing stored that would explain it. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
None of these is a reason to take more. Taking more is not a step this page ever suggests.
What it would be like to take◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What taking it involves
The recorded facts about getting hold of it and using it. Nothing here is a suggestion about what you should do.
How it is supplied
Not available
❝ Quoted from a source
Where this came from
Copied from a source RNAWiki stored, with the source named.
Read from the recorded approval status.
No source is stored against this line.
Form and route
Oral or intranasal powder and capsules
✎ Source-linked record
Where this came from
A person wrote this into the record with the study named beside it. No reviewer has signed it off.
The form and route recorded on this substance.
No source is stored against this line.
Who oversees it
RNAWiki has not recorded a supervision or regulatory status for this substance.
❝ Quoted from a source
Where this came from
Copied from a source RNAWiki stored, with the source named.
No register row and no identity class settled the question.
No source is stored against this line.
What is in the pack
Sold as loose powder or in capsules, originally in high-street and online shops labelled as plant food or bath salts and not for human consumption — a labelling convention that exempted the product from consumer-safety requirements while leaving it purchasable.
✎ Source-linked record
Where this came from
A person wrote this into the record with the study named beside it. No reviewer has signed it off.
Recorded notes on how this is sold. The rest of the recorded wording: The short duration of effect drives repeated redosing within a session, which is the pattern no animal protocol in the literature models.
No source is stored against this line.
Where it is registered
Regulatory records are listed in the technical disclosure at the foot of this page.
# Counted from records
Where this came from
A count of rows RNAWiki holds. It describes our records, not your body.
Register entries are stored per jurisdiction and shown with their dates.
No source is stored against this line.
Why people stop
Not recorded.
∅ Nothing recorded
Where this came from
RNAWiki holds nothing here and says so rather than guessing.
No record of why people stopped taking it is stored for this substance.
No source is stored against this line.
What it would be like to take◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What can go wrong
Sorted by where each line came from. A regulator's label and a report somebody sent in are not the same kind of fact.
·Worth asking a clinician aboutWritten into the record from the studies named on this page
The measured acute picture, from a 15-patient consecutive emergency series, is agitation in about half, tachycardia in two fifths, systolic hypertension in a fifth and seizures in a fifth, with a fifth requiring benzodiazepines and all patients discharged without sequelae. Hyperthermia is reproducible in animals at doses that do not deplete brain amines. Because the drug is a non-selective monoamine releaser, combination with serotonergic drugs carries the same interaction concern as MDMA. No controlled human study of repeated dosing exists, and the rodent neurotoxicity result is specific to the three-dose protocol tested.
Nobody counted how many people took this and were fine, so this cannot be turned into a rate.
These are reports people sent to a regulator. They do not show the medicine caused the reaction.
Nobody counted how many people took the medicine and reported nothing.
The same event can be reported more than once, and many reports are incomplete.
News coverage, lawsuits and new warnings change how often people report.
A count is not a rate and not a risk.
Mephedrone appears in spontaneous reports to regulators. Across the 3 most-reported reaction terms, 13 reaction mentions were counted. One report can name several reactions.
The recorded terms (3)
drug abuse — 6 reaction mentions
coma — 5 reaction mentions
patient uncooperative — 2 reaction mentions
open-targets-adr · recorded 2026-06-24 · a recorded source, not a stored snapshot
Over a long time. No completed tested study window is recorded, so long-term effects are not established by the registry record.
Groups the studies covered thinly. Which groups were under-represented in the studies has not been recorded for this substance. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children, older adults, and people with liver or kidney conditions are commonly excluded from trials; nothing here says whether they were.
What is missing or unclear∅Nothing found in the sources checked
Does the exact form matter?
Evidence belongs to the exact thing that was tested. A different salt, a different mixture or a different preparation is a different question.
The form that was studied
Oral or intranasal powder and capsules
✎ Source-linked record
Where this came from
A person wrote this into the record with the study named beside it. No reviewer has signed it off.
The form used in the studies cited on this page.
No source is stored against this line.
What is sold
The short duration of effect drives repeated redosing within a session, which is the pattern no animal protocol in the literature models.
✎ Source-linked record
Where this came from
A person wrote this into the record with the study named beside it. No reviewer has signed it off.
Recorded notes on which forms are sold and how they compare.
No source is stored against this line.
Evidence carries across two names for one substance. It does not carry across a salt, a mirror form or a mixture.
What it would be like to take◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What you could measure
This one is decided with a clinician, so this section holds questions to ask rather than a plan to run.
RNAWiki could not confidently classify this substance, so no self-experiment plan is offered.
Questions worth asking
Which of the trials of Mephedrone studied people like me?
What was measured, and for how long?
Was the result a laboratory value or a health outcome?
What would we watch for, and when would we stop?
Tracking can show whether something changed for you. It cannot show what caused it.
RNAWiki records evidence. It does not say whether this substance is right for you.
What is missing or unclear◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
Claims that go past the evidence
Things said about this substance that sound reasonable, and the exact step that is missing between the evidence and the claim.
✗Goes past the evidence
That absence of amine depletion after three rat doses indicates that repeated human use is free of monoaminergic harm
Why it sounds right. It follows from something real on this page: a body step, an animal result or a related finding.
The missing step. Nobody measured this in people for this use, or the study that did measure it did not show it.
What would change this
A study in people, for this exact use, measuring this exact thing, that a reviewer signs off.
RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
✗Goes past the evidence
That dopamine release establishes addictive potential — the authors state that hypothesis awaits confirmation
Why it sounds right. It follows from something real on this page: a body step, an animal result or a related finding.
The missing step. Nobody measured this in people for this use, or the study that did measure it did not show it.
What would change this
A study in people, for this exact use, measuring this exact thing, that a reviewer signs off.
RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
✗Goes past the evidence
That user-reported effects such as cool or blue peripheries are established; consecutive clinical observation did not find them
Why it sounds right. It follows from something real on this page: a body step, an animal result or a related finding.
The missing step. Nobody measured this in people for this use, or the study that did measure it did not show it.
What would change this
A study in people, for this exact use, measuring this exact thing, that a reviewer signs off.
RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
✗Goes past the evidence
That locomotor activity in rodents indexes dopaminergic effect for this compound; it did not
Why it sounds right. It follows from something real on this page: a body step, an animal result or a related finding.
The missing step. Nobody measured this in people for this use, or the study that did measure it did not show it.
What would change this
A study in people, for this exact use, measuring this exact thing, that a reviewer signs off.
RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
What is missing or unclear◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What nobody knows yet
Open questions, each with why it is open and what would close it.
How much did people take in the studies?
The sources RNAWiki checked hold nothing for this field.
Why it matters. A result belongs to an amount. Without the amount the result floats free.
What would answer it
A stored source that records it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
How fast does the body clear it?
The sources RNAWiki checked hold nothing for this field.
Why it matters. Without this, nothing on this page can say how long anything lasts.
What would answer it
A stored source that records it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
Missing populations
Which groups were under-represented in the studies has not been recorded.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
Missing long-term data
No completed tested study window is recorded.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
No reviewed conclusion
RNAWiki has not yet published a reviewed conclusion for this use.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
Missing interaction studies
No interaction was found in the registers checked. Not finding one is not the same as showing there is none.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
Formulation uncertainty
Several salts, forms or products of Mephedrone are recorded. Results from one form may not transfer to another.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
Mechanism not reviewed
No reviewed mechanism story exists for this substance.
Why it matters. Recorded by the evidence model as a gap on this record.
What would answer it
A study that measures it, and a reviewer to sign it off.
Last checked 2026-09-04. Searched: The sources listed in the receipts at the foot of this page.
What happened in people◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
Check any of this yourself
Every line above traced back to the study it came from. This is the technical layer, and the vocabulary changes here.
Every line above can be traced to the study named beside it. Follow the link and read it.
Hyperthermia without neurotoxicity — MDMA gave both
In plain words
Repeated doses of mephedrone raised body temperature in rats but left brain serotonin and dopamine unchanged afterwards. MDMA raised temperature and destroyed serotonin terminals.
What was measured
Core temperature and post-treatment cortical and striatal amine content after repeated dosing with mephedrone, methylone and MDMA
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Baumann et al. gave three subcutaneous doses of mephedrone or methylone at 3.0 and 10.0 mg/kg, and three doses of MDMA at 2.5 and 7.5 mg/kg. Both cathinones caused hyperthermia but produced no long-term change in cortical or striatal amines; MDMA caused robust hyperthermia and persistent depletion of cortical and striatal serotonin. This matters because hyperthermia had been treated as the proximate driver of MDMA's serotonergic damage, and here two drugs that produce it did not produce the damage. The dissociation identifies hyperthermia as insufficient on its own, which redirects the question toward what MDMA does that these compounds do not. It also means the specific neurotoxicity finding recorded on the MDMA page does not transfer to this compound, and this record does not carry it across.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
A transporter substrate, like MDMA, not a blocker like cocaine
In plain words
In rat brain preparations, mephedrone was taken up by the transporters and made them run backwards, releasing dopamine and serotonin. That is MDMA's mechanism, not cocaine's.
What was measured
Synaptosomal release potency and selectivity across DAT, SERT and NET, and dose-related extracellular dopamine and 5-HT in nucleus accumbens microdialysis
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
In vitro release assays using rat brain synaptosomes showed mephedrone and methylone to be non-selective substrates for the plasma-membrane monoamine transporters, similar to MDMA in both potency and selectivity. In vivo microdialysis in the rat nucleus accumbens showed that intravenous mephedrone at 0.3 and 1.0 mg/kg produced dose-related increases in extracellular dopamine and serotonin, with the serotonin effect larger. Both cathinones were weak motor stimulants compared with methamphetamine. The substrate-versus-blocker distinction is not a technicality: a substrate is carried into the terminal and reverses the transporter, giving a different time course, a different dependence on transporter expression, and a different interaction profile from a reuptake inhibitor.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
Fifteen emergency presentations: agitation, tachycardia, seizures in one in five
In plain words
A London emergency department described fifteen patients who had taken mephedrone. Half were agitated, two in five had a fast heart rate, and one in five had a seizure. All were discharged without lasting harm.
What was measured
Frequency of agitation, tachycardia, hypertension and seizure across 15 emergency presentations with self-reported mephedrone use
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Wood, Greene and Dargan described 15 patients presenting to a London emergency department after self-reported mephedrone use, at a point when only two single case reports existed. Significant features were agitation in 53.3%, tachycardia in 40%, systolic hypertension in 20% and seizures in 20%. Twenty per cent required benzodiazepines, predominantly for agitation. All patients were discharged with no sequelae. Notably, the widely repeated user report of cool or blue peripheries was not observed in any patient in the series — a specific instance of a circulating claim failing a clinical check. The authors concluded that the pattern resembled that of 1-benzylpiperazine, which had recently been controlled, and called for assessment of mephedrone's legal status; the UK ban followed within months.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
Sold in shops, banned in eighteen months, and the pharmacology came afterwards
In plain words
Mephedrone was on sale across the UK through 2009 and early 2010 and was banned in April 2010. The study establishing how it actually works was published in December 2011.
What was measured
Dates of legal control against the publication date of the mechanistic characterisation
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Mephedrone was sold openly in the United Kingdom through 2009 and into 2010, labelled as plant food or bath salts and not for human consumption, before being controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act in April 2010. In the United States, DEA published a notice of intent on 8 September 2011 (76 FR 55616) and a final order temporarily placing three synthetic cathinones including mephedrone in Schedule I on 21 October 2011 (76 FR 65371), with permanent control following under the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012. It now appears at 21 CFR 1308.11(d)(36) under DEA code 1248. The Baumann characterisation of its transporter mechanism appeared online in December 2011 and in print in 2012 — after both control decisions. The 15-patient emergency series that prompted the UK assessment had itself been published only months before the ban. This is the ordinary sequence for a novel psychoactive substance and it is worth recording as such: control precedes characterisation, and the characterisation, when it arrives, sometimes contradicts what was assumed.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
A user report that did not survive clinical examination
In plain words
Users widely described cold, blue hands and feet after taking mephedrone. In fifteen consecutive emergency presentations, no clinician observed it in a single patient.
What was measured
Presence of cool or blue peripheries across 15 consecutive emergency presentations
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Wood et al. specifically looked for the peripheral vasoconstriction — cool or blue peripheries — that user reports had associated with mephedrone, and recorded that it was not seen in any of the 15 patients. This is a small negative finding and it is worth its place because of what it illustrates: a circulating description of a drug's effects, repeated widely enough to be treated as established, checked against consecutive clinical observation and not confirmed. The same case series positively confirmed agitation, tachycardia, hypertension and seizure at measurable rates. A source that gets four features right and one wrong is not unreliable; it is simply not a measurement, and this record separates the two.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
Absence of neurotoxicity in rats is not evidence of safety in people
In plain words
Mephedrone did not deplete brain serotonin in the rat comparison. That is a real and specific finding, and it does not establish that repeated human use is harmless.
What was measured
That the absence of long-term amine depletion after three doses in rats indicates that repeated human use does not damage monoaminergic terminals
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
The Baumann finding is narrow and precise: three doses at 3.0 and 10.0 mg/kg subcutaneously produced no long-term change in cortical or striatal amines in rats. The authors state directly that determining the consequences of repeated drug exposure warrants further study, and that the hypothesis about dopaminergic contribution to addictive potential awaits confirmation. Extrapolating from that to human safety fails on dose, on route, on schedule of use, and on species — human use patterns involve repeated redosing over a session in a way the three-dose protocol does not model. Subsequent work has found that mephedrone can augment the neurotoxicity of other stimulants and that outcomes vary with ambient temperature, so even the rodent result is conditional.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
A weak motor stimulant despite strong dopamine release
In plain words
Mephedrone raised dopamine substantially in the reward circuitry but produced much less movement stimulation than methamphetamine — the two do not track each other.
What was measured
Locomotor activity against extracellular dopamine and 5-HT for mephedrone, methylone and methamphetamine
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
In the same series of experiments, both mephedrone and methylone were weak motor stimulants compared with methamphetamine, despite producing dose-related increases in extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The dissociation is informative for the same reason the hyperthermia one is: locomotor stimulation is routinely used as a behavioural proxy for dopaminergic activity in stimulant pharmacology, and here the proxy and the measurement disagree. The likely explanation is the concurrent serotonin release, which is larger than the dopamine effect and which opposes locomotor activation — the same interaction that distinguishes MDMA from methamphetamine behaviourally. It is a reminder that a behavioural readout is a model of a neurochemical event, not the event.
This order is fixed in code and does not count clicks or time on the page.
What is not here
6 questions this page could not answer
These sections were prepared and left out because there was nothing to put in them. They are listed rather than hidden, so the gaps in this record are visible.
What was measured, goal by goal — found nothing in the sources checked.
How long anything takes — found nothing in the sources checked.
What it may clash with — found nothing in the sources checked.
Other ways to the same goal — found nothing in the sources checked.
How this medicine reached us — found nothing in the sources checked.
What changed on this page — found nothing in the sources checked.
The record as stored
The full record, for auditing
Everything above is built from what is below. This layer keeps the technical vocabulary, record identifiers and every stored row, so a reader who wants to check the page can.
The older medicine-wide conclusion held in this record
Written for a clinical reader, and about the medicine as a whole rather than about one indication, population and set of trials. RNAWiki does not treat it as a programme conclusion and no reviewer has signed it off in that form. It is here word for word because it is what the record holds.
A cathinone that releases dopamine and serotonin with a profile comparable to MDMA in potency and selectivity, and which in the head-to-head animal comparison caused hyperthermia but no long-term amine depletion where MDMA caused persistent cortical and striatal serotonin loss — a dissociation between hyperthermia and neurotoxicity that the field had assumed did not exist.
Recorded evidence blocks (6)
Q1
What did Mephedrone's largest trial (12 people) and its longest (3 months) measure?
12 people in Mephedrone's largest registered study, 3 months in its longest registered window, measuring Changes in blood pressure. ClinicalTrials.gov · 2026-09-01
2 phase1; NCT02232789; 2014-12; no ageing endpoint recorded. Last human test completed 2015, NCT02294266.
Interpretation These counts include studies where Mephedrone was a comparison treatment, a background treatment or an exposure in an observational study, and the longest window may be a planned end date. Trial roles have not yet been classified for this record.
Show the evidence
phase1
2
Last recorded human testNCT02294266
2015-03
recorded 2026-09-01 · last checked 2026-09-04
Q2
Mephedrone was tested only in human — what did it show?
Interpretation Changes in blood pressure — the recorded outcome words.
Show the evidence
humanNCT02232789
mechanism-only; Changes in blood pressure; 2
recorded 2026-09-01 · last checked 2026-09-04
Q3
Could one person measure Mephedrone's effect on changes in blood pressure?
Changes in blood pressure: measured in Mephedrone's trials.
Interpretation changes in blood pressure is the recorded endpoint.
Show the evidence
biomarkers
changes in blood pressure; 2026-09-01
human trials at or under30
2
Not recorded for this substance
a recorded half-life
smallest human trial
12; NCT02232789; PHASE1; the smallest recorded human enrolment at or below 30; the registry states no direction of its result; COMPLETED
Q4
Which 2 trials of Mephedrone posted no result?
Posted no result
2 of 2 completed trials
Registrations
NCT02232789 and NCT02294266
Completion dates
oldest 2014-12; newest 2015-03
Show the evidence
Trial
NCT02232789
2014-12
NCT02294266
2015-03
Q5
At the median, Mephedrone's trials enrolled 12 people — anything larger?
Median enrolment
12
Largest enrolment
12
Registered trials counted
2
Q6
What do 13 spontaneous reports say about Mephedrone — and not say?
These are reports people sent to a regulator. They do not show the medicine caused the reaction. Nobody counted how many people took the medicine and reported nothing. The same event can be reported more than once, and many reports are incomplete. News coverage, lawsuits and new warnings change how often people report. A count is not a rate and not a risk.
Mephedrone appears in spontaneous reports to regulators. Across the 3 most-reported reaction terms, 13 reaction mentions were counted: drug abuse 6; coma 5; patient uncooperative 2. open-targets-adr · CHEMBL4094396 · 2026-06-24
Show the evidence
drug abuse
6
coma
5
patient uncooperative
2
recorded 2026-06-24 · last checked 2026-09-04
Where it is registeredIdentifiers, relations and other names
ClinicalTrials.gov — US Government work · Europe PMC — metadata only, under the recorded legal gate · Open Targets 26.06 — CC0 · derived from this page's own recorded fields; no external licence
✗ required summary fields resolved: 5 required field(s) not terminal: Why people use it, Best-supported result, Most important common problem, Biggest unanswered question, Human evidence
✓ public claims reviewed: 0 reviewed claim(s); drafts are never rendered
✓ source coverage passed: 4 source rows
✓ no critical contamination: no quarantine open
✓ canonical metadata passed: slug and display name present
✓ no raw internal fields: enforced by the copy-contract test over the rendered page
This is a record of evidence. It is not medical advice, and it does not say this substance suits you. Nothing here says any substance on RNAWiki is appropriate for a child.