In a first study, nantenine pretreatment protected mice from developing a hyperthermic response when they were subsequently injected with MDMA. "The complete attenuation of hyperthermia following pretreatment with nantenine was interesting," Dr. Fantegrossi observes, "but a far more useful clinical effect would be reversal of hyperthermia previously induced by MDMA." To test for this effect, the scientists injected mice with MDMA, and 30 minutes later, when the mice were hyperthermic, injected half of them with nantenine. Body temperatures of the mice receiving nantenine rapidly returned to baseline, while the other mice remained hyperthermic for close to 3 hours.

Further tests confirmed nantenine's ability to block some of MDMA's other effects. In one group of mice, pretreatment with nantenine reduced MDMA-induced motor activity: One hour after injection with MDMA, untreated mice were three times as active as mice pretreated with nantenine. In another part of the study, researchers injected mice pretreated with nantenine with a lethal dose of MDMA; the nantenine reduced mortality by 50 percent. Research now under way, says Dr. Fantegrossi, suggests nantenine has similar anti-MDMA effects in monkeys.

Ja, og man må da håbe at nantenin ikke modvirker MDMA's euforiske effekter.