Assessment of high-efficacy agonism in synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists containing l--leucinate.

Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) represent a class of new psychoactive substances that pose great health risks attributed to their wide-ranging and severe adverse effects. Recent evidence has shown that SCRAs with key moieties can confer superagonism, yet this phenomenon is still not well understood. In this study, we developed a structure-activity relationship (SAR) for SCRA superagonism by comparing eight compounds differing by their head moiety (l-valinate vs.