This page shows what was measured, who it was measured in, and what that does not settle.
What Phencyclidine does in the body
An abandoned anaesthetic now used mainly as a research model and recreational drug.
PCP sits inside the pore of the NMDA receptor, a channel that normally opens when glutamate arrives and lets signals through. With the pore plugged, that whole signalling system is quietened. In a person that produces dissociation — a sense of separation from the body and the surroundings — along with hallucinations, thought disorder, emotional flattening and cognitive impairment. That combination is what makes it a model of schizophrenia rather than merely an intoxicant: amphetamine produces the hallucinations and paranoia, but not the withdrawal, the thought disorder or the cognitive deficits.
What happened in people
Blood levels causing psychosis-like effects matched those blocking one key brain signalling channel.
✓ 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
Reproducing schizophrenia-like symptoms does not prove that schizophrenia has the same underlying cause.
Where it acts
The pore of the NMDA receptor channel, throughout the cortex and limbic system — the drug binds inside the open channel rather than at the neurotransmitter site
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
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 · J1DOI7UV76 · read 2026-08-29
Its recorded molecular formula is C17H25N, weighing 243.4.
PubChem record · 6468 · read 2026-08-29
Where each sentence above came from
No recorded sentence describes the change this makes in a way that stands on its own. The page opens with what it is taken for instead, and the recorded explanation follows below.
Shown as the opening line on this page.
The limit a reviewer approved as the one that matters most here.
The four opening statements run to 117 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.
Placebo
A placebo is a dummy treatment given so the real one can be compared with it.
A picture of it, and where the picture fails
A placebo is like a blank control in an experiment.
Where that stops being true. A blank does nothing. People given a placebo often do get better.
What people get wrong. A placebo effect is read as imaginary. The improvement is measured and real.
An inactive intervention matched in appearance to the test intervention, used to control for non-specific effects.
Comparator
A comparator is whatever the treatment was measured against.
A picture of it, and where the picture fails
It is like the other runner in a race.
Where that stops being true. A race has one winner. A study can show both arms improved.
What people get wrong. Results are read without asking what the other group got. Beating nothing is not beating a treatment.
The control condition against which the experimental intervention is assessed.
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.
Characterisation of the psychological state produced by Sernyl in humans
✓ The study showed what it set out to show
Who was studied
Luby et al. 1959 clinical study of Sernyl
How many people
0
Study design
Early human clinical investigation
Compared against
Not recorded for this study
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
What was found
Descriptive: the state was characterised as schizophrenomimetic, and reported as such in the paper title
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. A 1959 investigation with the consent and design standards of its period. Its value is the clinical description, which has survived a complete replacement of the underlying mechanistic account.
How far it carries. This study is recorded from the curated record, not from the registry match.
Form and route. Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated
Interval reported. Not recorded in this summary
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim.
21 CFR 1308.12 — Schedule II, including paragraph (e)(4), phencyclidine, DEA code 7471 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-II/part-1308/section-13… · a recorded source, not a stored snapshot
Whether ketamine and phencyclidine selectively reduce N-methyl-aspartate-evoked excitation
✓ The study showed what it set out to show
Who was studied
Anis et al. 1983 selectivity experiment in central mammalian neurones
How many people
0
Study design
Preclinical electrophysiology
Compared against
Not recorded for this study
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
What was found
Selective reduction of N-methyl-aspartate responses relative to other excitatory amino acids in the same neurones
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. Animal electrophysiology; the extrapolation to the human psychotomimetic state was made later, by the concentration-matching argument rather than in this experiment.
How far it carries. This study is recorded from the curated record, not from the registry match.
Form and route. Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated
Interval reported. Not recorded in this summary
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim.
21 CFR 1308.12 — Schedule II, including paragraph (e)(4), phencyclidine, DEA code 7471 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-II/part-1308/section-13… · a recorded source, not a stored snapshot
Whether the concentrations producing psychotomimetic effects match those at which PCP occupies its NMDA-associated binding site
✓ The study showed what it set out to show
Who was studied
Javitt & Zukin 1991 concentration-matching review
How many people
25
Study design
Systematic review of clinical dose and concentration data
Compared against
Not recorded for this study
Kind of result
A number that stands in for health
What was found
Psychotomimetic effects at submicromolar serum concentrations, matching selective occupancy of the PCP binding site; other NMDA antagonists producing PCP-like effects in proportion to potency there
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. A review of 25 heterogeneous papers rather than a prospective study. The concentration-effect matching is an argument from consistency across studies, not a within-study dose-response.
How far it carries. This study is recorded from the curated record, not from the registry match.
Form and route. Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated
Interval reported. Not recorded in this summary
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim.
21 CFR 1308.12 — Schedule II, including paragraph (e)(4), phencyclidine, DEA code 7471 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-II/part-1308/section-13… · a recorded source, not a stored snapshot
What we know
RNAWiki holds 3 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 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
Phencyclidine
What a person takes: Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated.
The measurement behind this step
As Sernyl it was given intravenously by an anaesthetist. There is no current medical delivery system. Illicit use is oral, or as a liquid applied to tobacco or cannabis and smoked, which gives poor dose control over a drug whose effects appear at submicromolar serum concentrations and last for hours.
Getting in
Taken by any route, and lingering
Swallowed, smoked on plant matter or injected. Effects last hours, and the drug is stored in fat and released slowly afterwards.
╌╌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
Lipophilic weak base, so it accumulates in adipose tissue and is trapped in acidic gastric fluid, both of which prolong the exposure. Psychotomimetic effects appear at submicromolar serum concentrations, so a small amount produces a long effect.
It can only get to its target when the channel is already open, so it acts on circuits that are already active.
╌╌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
Use-dependent open-channel block: the drug binds a site within the pore of the NMDA receptor, which is accessible only when the channel has been opened by glutamate and glycine. This is the origin of the term "PCP receptor", named before the channel itself was identified.
Responses to one excitatory chemical fall while responses to others are comparatively spared. That selectivity is what identified the target.
╌╌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
Non-competitive inhibition of NMDA-receptor-mediated neurotransmission, demonstrated by Anis and Lodge as selective reduction of N-methyl-aspartate-evoked excitation relative to other excitatory amino acids in the same central mammalian neurones.
A syndrome appears with the shape of schizophrenia
Hallucinations and paranoia, but also emotional flattening, slowed movement, disordered thought and cognitive impairment — the whole picture, not half of it.
╌╌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
PCP-induced psychosis incorporates positive and negative symptoms plus formal thought disorder and neuropsychological deficits. Other NMDA antagonists produce PCP-like effects in proportion to their potency at the same binding site, which is the rank-order evidence for the mechanism.
The intoxicated state includes agitation, insensitivity to pain and disturbed temperature control, which is what makes an emergency presentation hazardous.
╌╌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
Sympathomimetic and anaesthetic features coexist: hypertension, tachycardia, nystagmus, analgesia and disturbed thermoregulation. The postoperative emergence reactions that ended Sernyl's use as an anaesthetic are the same phenomenon in a controlled setting.
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 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.
Surgical patients between the late 1950s and the mid-1960s, and recreational users since. There is no lawful medical use.
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
Sernyl succeeded as an anaesthetic and was withdrawn from human use because of postoperative emergence reactions, not because of failure of effect
Three decades of drug development on the NMDA hypofunction hypothesis has produced no approved schizophrenia treatment acting at this receptor
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 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 (11)
It was studied for a different goal
The studies measured something else entirely. Nothing in this record points to this reason.
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
Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated
✎ 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
As Sernyl it was given intravenously by an anaesthetist. There is no current medical delivery system.
✎ 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: Illicit use is oral, or as a liquid applied to tobacco or cannabis and smoked, which gives poor dose control over a drug whose effects appear at submicromolar serum concentrations and last for hours.
No source is stored against this line.
Where it is registered
Not recorded.
∅ Nothing recorded
Where this came from
RNAWiki holds nothing here and says so rather than guessing.
No register entry is recorded.
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 intoxicated state combines dissociation and analgesia with sympathetic stimulation: hypertension, tachycardia, nystagmus, and disturbed thermoregulation. Agitation with insensitivity to pain is the feature that makes emergency management hazardous, and rhabdomyolysis and hyperthermia are recognised complications of prolonged struggle in that state. Lipophilicity and gastric ion trapping prolong the exposure well beyond that of a comparable dose of ketamine. The postoperative emergence reactions that ended its anaesthetic use — agitation, delirium and hallucinosis on waking — are the same phenomenon under controlled conditions and are the reason a shorter-acting congener replaced it.
Nobody counted how many people took this and were fine, so this cannot be turned into a rate.
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
Historically an intravenous anaesthetic; now taken orally, smoked on plant material, or insufflated
✎ 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
There is no current medical delivery system.
✎ 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. The rest of the recorded wording: Illicit use is oral, or as a liquid applied to tobacco or cannabis and smoked, which gives poor dose control over a drug whose effects appear at submicromolar serum concentrations and last for hours.
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 Phencyclidine 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 reproducing schizophrenia's symptoms by blocking NMDA establishes NMDA dysfunction as the cause of schizophrenia
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 a PCP immunoassay result identifies phencyclidine rather than one of its arylcyclohexylamine analogues
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 Schedule II placement reflects a current medical use; it reflects a use abandoned in the 1960s
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 the model's strength predicts therapeutic success — no glutamatergic drug acting at this target has been approved for schizophrenia
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.
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 Phencyclidine 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.
Psychotomimetic at submicromolar serum concentrations — at its NMDA site
In plain words
Researchers pulled together every study reporting the dose and blood level at which PCP produces its psychiatric effects. Those concentrations are the same ones at which it selectively plugs the NMDA receptor channel and nothing else.
What was measured
Serum and CSF concentrations producing psychotomimetic effects, against the concentration ranges of PCP's molecular interactions, across 25 papers
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Javitt and Zukin identified 25 papers describing the clinical dose and the serum and cerebrospinal fluid concentrations at which PCP produces psychotomimetic effects, and compared that range with the concentrations at which PCP interacts with each of its molecular targets. Psychotomimetic effects occur at submicromolar serum concentrations, and at those concentrations PCP interacts selectively with a specific binding site — the PCP receptor — associated with the NMDA-type excitatory amino acid receptor, producing non-competitive inhibition of NMDA-mediated neurotransmission. Other NMDA antagonists including ketamine induce PCP-like neurobehavioural effects in proportion to their potency at that site. The design is what makes this a mechanistic claim rather than a correlation: a drug with several known targets, whose behavioural effects appear only in the concentration range of one of them, and whose effects are reproduced by unrelated compounds ranked by their potency at that same target.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
It reproduces negative symptoms, which amphetamine does not
In plain words
The amphetamine model of schizophrenia produces hallucinations and paranoia. PCP produces those plus emotional withdrawal, slowed movement, disordered thought and the cognitive deficits — the parts that are hardest to treat.
What was measured
Symptom domains reproduced by PCP against those reproduced by amphetamine, compared with the schizophrenia syndrome
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Javitt and Zukin set out the comparison directly: PCP-induced psychosis incorporates both positive symptoms (hallucinations, paranoia) and negative symptoms (emotional withdrawal, motor retardation), and uniquely also reproduces the formal thought disorder and the neuropsychological deficits associated with schizophrenia. Amphetamine psychosis reproduces the positive symptoms alone. Since the negative and cognitive domains are the ones that respond least to dopamine-blocking antipsychotics and account for most of the long-term disability, a model that produces them is more informative about pathophysiology than one that does not. This finding is the reason the NMDA hypofunction hypothesis displaced the pure dopamine hypothesis as the dominant mechanistic account, and it is the origin of every glutamatergic drug programme in schizophrenia since.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
The selectivity experiment, 1983
In plain words
Anis and Lodge showed that ketamine and PCP specifically reduced neurons' responses to one excitatory chemical — N-methyl-aspartate — while leaving responses to others comparatively intact. That is where dissociative anaesthesia and NMDA came together.
What was measured
Selective reduction of N-methyl-aspartate-evoked excitation relative to other excitatory amino acids in central mammalian neurones
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Anis, Berry, Burton and Lodge demonstrated that the dissociative anaesthetics ketamine and phencyclidine selectively reduce excitation of central mammalian neurones by N-methyl-aspartate, as opposed to by other excitatory amino acids. The design is a within-cell selectivity comparison: responses to several agonists recorded in the same neurone before and during drug application, so the reduction cannot be attributed to a general fall in excitability. This identified the receptor system through which the dissociative anaesthetics act, four years before the NMDA receptor was cloned and a decade before ketamine's antidepressant effects were reported. Every record on this site that concerns an NMDA antagonist — ketamine, nitrous oxide, dextromethorphan — rests on this experiment.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
An anaesthetic abandoned for what happened on waking
In plain words
Parke-Davis marketed PCP as Sernyl in the late 1950s. It produced excellent anaesthesia with a stable heart and blood pressure — and then patients woke agitated, delirious and hallucinating, and it was withdrawn.
What was measured
Withdrawal from human anaesthetic use against retention in Schedule II, with analogues placed in Schedule I
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Sernyl was introduced as a human anaesthetic in the late 1950s and withdrawn from human use in the mid-1960s because of postoperative emergence reactions: agitation, delirium and hallucinosis on waking. The veterinary formulation Sernylan continued until 1978. The drug was not withdrawn for failing at anaesthesia; it succeeded at it, which is why ketamine, a shorter-acting congener with a milder emergence profile, was developed and remains in use worldwide. The scheduling reflects that history: phencyclidine sits in Schedule II at 21 CFR 1308.12(e)(4) under DEA code 7471, a category that formally admits accepted medical use, while its analogues PCE, PCPy and TCP — which were never medicines — are in Schedule I. Luby and colleagues had already published the observation that made the withdrawal inevitable and the science valuable, in 1959, under the title "Study of a new schizophrenomimetic drug: Sernyl".
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
The 1959 paper called it schizophrenomimetic in its title
In plain words
The first careful study of Sernyl in people did not describe an anaesthetic with a side effect. It described a drug that produced a state resembling schizophrenia, and said so in the title.
What was measured
Clinical characterisation of the PCP state as a schizophrenia-like syndrome, published 1959
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Luby, Cohen, Rosenbaum, Gottlieb and Kelley published "Study of a new schizophrenomimetic drug: Sernyl" in 1959, within a year or two of the compound's introduction into human anaesthesia. The framing is the finding: the investigators recognised immediately that what the drug produced was not a nonspecific confusional state but something with the structure of a psychiatric syndrome. That recognition preceded the identification of the NMDA receptor by nearly a quarter of a century and preceded the receptor pharmacology by thirty years, which makes it an unusual case of a careful clinical description surviving intact through a complete change in the underlying mechanistic account.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
A drug model of a syndrome is not the syndrome
In plain words
PCP reproduces schizophrenia's symptoms convincingly. That does not establish that schizophrenia is caused by an NMDA problem — it establishes that one route to that symptom picture runs through NMDA.
What was measured
That reproducing a syndrome by blocking a receptor establishes that the syndrome is caused by dysfunction of that receptor
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Javitt and Zukin state their own conclusion carefully: the findings "suggest that endogenous dysfunction of NMDA receptor-mediated neurotransmission might contribute to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia". A pharmacological model demonstrates sufficiency — that blocking this receptor produces this state — and says nothing directly about necessity, about whether the receptor is dysfunctional in patients, or about whether the same final symptom picture could be reached by other routes. Three decades of glutamatergic drug development in schizophrenia has produced no approved treatment acting on this target, which is the practical form of the gap. This record files the inference as caution not because the model is weak, but because it is strong enough to be over-read.
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
Schedule II for the parent, Schedule I for the analogues
In plain words
PCP is in Schedule II, the category that admits an accepted medical use, because it once had one. Its close chemical relatives, which never did, are in Schedule I.
What was measured
Schedule assignment of phencyclidine against its ethylamine, pyrrolidine and thiophene analogues
Effect estimate
No reviewed effect estimate exists for this record.
Limits
See the technical detail.
From the source
Phencyclidine appears at 21 CFR 1308.12(e)(4) under DEA code 7471, in Schedule II — the same schedule as morphine and cocaine, defined by high abuse potential together with a currently accepted medical use. Its analogues appear in Schedule I at 1308.11(d): the ethylamine analogue PCE (7455), the pyrrolidine analogue PCPy (7458), the thiophene analogue TCP (7470) and TCPy (7473). The distinction between the two schedules here is historical rather than pharmacological: the parent compound was once a marketed anaesthetic and the analogues never were, and the schedules record that difference in provenance. The same logic appears on the GHB record, where an approved product and an identical unapproved substance occupy different schedules.
Source
21 CFR 1308.12(e)(4) and 21 CFR 1308.11(d)(32) through (35), current eCFR text
Role in the trial
Not matched to a registered study
Identity check
no open identity hold
Audit mark
verified
Review state
Written into the record, not signed off as a reviewed claim
Where else this substance is registered
FDA substance identifier (UNII)
J1DOI7UV76
CAS registry number
77-10-1
PubChem compound
6468
ChEMBL
CHEMBL275528
ChEBI
8058
WHO international nonproprietary name list entry
1058
EMA substance identifier
100000085809
DrugBank
DB03575
Checks this page had to pass
✓ Passed
Identity resolved
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no quarantine open
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Every public sentence names a source
The opening statement carries the origin: Reviewed first-read answer.
✗ Not passed
Trial roles classified for highlighted evidence
No registered study is classified as testing this substance.
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No internal keys in reader text
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Safety mode resolved
No register row and no identity class settled the question.
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Canonical metadata present
slug and display name present
What is missing or unclear◇Read from sources, not yet reviewed
What to learn next
Ordered by what would most change how you read this page, starting with what is easiest to misunderstand.
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What is not here
8 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 close this is to real life — found nothing in the sources checked.
Felt, measured, or meaningful — 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.
An anaesthetic that worked and was abandoned because of what patients experienced on waking, and which then became the most informative model of schizophrenia in pharmacology — psychotomimetic at submicromolar serum concentrations through selective non-competitive blockade of the NMDA receptor.
Recorded evidence blocks (0)
Where it is registeredIdentifiers, relations and other names
Sernyl — marketed by Parke-Davis as a human anaesthetic from the late 1950s and withdrawn from human use in the mid-1960s; Sernylan, the veterinary formulation, was withdrawn in 1978
✗ required summary fields resolved: 4 required field(s) not terminal: Why people use it, Best-supported result, Biggest unanswered question, Human evidence
✓ public claims reviewed: 0 reviewed claim(s); drafts are never rendered
✓ source coverage passed: 2 source rows
✓ no critical contamination: no quarantine open
✓ canonical metadata passed: slug and display name present
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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.