Environment-, drug- and stress-induced alterations in body temperature affect the neurotoxicity of substituted amphetamines

In the companion paper we demonstrated that d-methampheta-mine (d-METH), d-methylenedioxyamphetamine (d-MDA) and d-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (d-MDMA), but not d-fenflur-amine (d-FEN), appear to damage dopaminergic projections to the striatum of the mouse. An elevation in core temperature also was associated with exposure to d-METH, d-MDA and d-MDMA, whereas exposure to d-FEN lowered core temperature. Given these findings, we examined the effects of temperature on substituted amphetamine (AMP)-induced neurotoxicity in the C57BL/6J mouse. Levels of stnatal dopamine (DA) and glial fibnllary acidic protein (GFAP) were taken as indicators of neu-rotoxicity. Alterations in ambient temperature, pretreatment with drugs reported to cause hypothermia in the mouse and hypo-thermia induced by restraint stress were used to affect AMP-induced neurotoxicity. Mice received d-METH (1 0 mg/kg), d