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VCU-1012 is a psychedelic drug related to the arylpiperazine quipazine.[1][2]

It is an agonist of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor, but unlike quipazine, is inactive as an agonist of the serotonin 5-HT3 receptor.[1] Due to its lack of serotonin 5-HT3 receptor agonism, VCU-1012 is expected to lack quipazine’s gastrointestinal side effects, such as nausea and vomiting.[1] The drug dose-dependently induces the head-twitch response, a behavioral proxy of psychedelic effects, in rodents.[1] It also produces prolonged antidepressant-like effects in rodents.[1] The drug is being studied in terms of potential psychoplastogenic effects as well.[1]

Other novel psychedelic analogues of quipazine have also been described.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

VCU-1012 was first described in the scientific literature by Jessica Maltman and Richard Glennon and colleagues at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2024 and 2025.[1][2] It may have therapeutic potential and possible medical applications.[1] VCU-1012 represents a novel structural class of psychedelics distinct from tryptamines, phenethylamines, and lysergamides.[1][2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Maltman JL, Younkin J, Ghorpade A, Fiorillo M, Jaster A, Akbarali HI, et al. (5 October 2024). Characterization of the psychedelic quipazine analog VCU-1012 in mice (PDF). Neuroscience 2024. Society for Neuroscience.
  2. ^ a b c Maltman JL, Younkin J, Fiorillo M, Jaster AM, Paymode A, Saha S, et al. Characterizing the Novel Quipazine Analog VCU-1012: Unveiling a New Class of Psychedelic Compounds. The 48th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Neuroscience Society, July 24-27, 2025, Venue Toki Messee, Niigata, Japan. Japanese Neuroscience Society.
  3. ^ “Notes from the International Society for Research on Psychedelics’ 2024 Conference in New Orleans (Guest Contribution)”. Psychedelic Alpha. 20 March 2024. Retrieved 10 May 2025. Dr. Jason Younkin, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University and adjunct professor at Virginia State University, gave a talk and displayed interesting findings with quipazine analogs during the poster session. Quipazine is a unique psychedelic as its chemical structure includes a piperazine group. While it produces psychedelic effects, it is not used as frequently as other serotonergic psychedelics due to its effects on the gastrointestinal tract via 5-HT3 receptor activation. The goal of this study was to find analogs of quipazine that do not produce these negative side effects or the hallucination-like effects of all classical psychedelics using a battery of molecular and pharmacological techniques. [Photograph]
  4. ^ Younkin J (16 February 2024). Pharmacological characterization of quipazine analogs as a new structural class of psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonists (PDF). International Society for Research on Psychedelics (ISRP) Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, February 16-18, 2024. International Society for Research on Psychedelics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 February 2024.
  5. ^ Yang Y (2025). Design and Synthesis of Quipazine Analogs for Programmable Control of Psychedelic Effects (Thesis). Columbia University. doi:10.7916/0K6K-YC03. To better understand how to potentially regulate these effects, we focused on the design of compounds with programmable psychedelic intensity through fine-tuning the 5-HT2A receptor signaling efficacy. We turned to the source that drives the psychedelic effects of serotonergic psychedelics, the 5-HT2A receptor. By modifying the scaffold of quipazine, we aimed to control the psychedelic intensity by tuning different levels of 5-HT2A signaling efficacy within the quipazine analog series, and thus provide design guidelines for developing desirable pharmacological agents with varying degree of psychedelic effects.
  6. ^ de la Fuente Revenga M, Shah UH, Nassehi N, Jaster AM, Hemanth P, Sierra S, et al. (March 2021). “Psychedelic-like Properties of Quipazine and Its Structural Analogues in Mice”. ACS Chemical Neuroscience. 12 (5): 831–844. doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00291. PMC 7933111. PMID 33400504.
  7. ^ de la Fuente Revenga M, Shah U, González-Maeso J (19 October 2019). Non-psychedelic serotonin 5-HT2A receptor agonists: Behavioral and functional diversity in quipazine analogues (PDF). International Society for Research on Psychedelics (ISRP), Inaugural Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, October 18-20, 2019. International Society for Research on Psychedelics (ISRP). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 November 2021.
  8. ^ Glennon RA, Dukat M (2 May 2023). “Quipazine: Classical hallucinogen? Novel psychedelic?”. Australian Journal of Chemistry. 76 (5): 288–298. doi:10.1071/CH22256. ISSN 0004-9425.