Humankind has used and abused psychoactive drugs for millennia. Formally, a psychoactive drug is any agent that alters cognition and mood. The term "psychotropic drug" is neutral and describes the entire class of substrates, licit and illicit, of interest to governmental drug policy. While these drugs are prescribed for issues ranging from pain management to anxiety, they are also used recreationally. In fact, the current opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in American history. While the topic is highly politicized with racial, gender, and socioeconomic elements, there's no denying the toll drug mis- and overuse is taking on this country. Overdoses, fueled by opioids, are is the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 years old of age - killing roughly ca. 64,000 people in 2016. From a chemistry chemistry standpoint, the question becomes is how in what ways, if any, did we organic chemists get contribute to this pointproblem? In this targeted review, we provide a brief historical accounts of the main classes of psychoactive drugs and discuss several foundational total syntheses that ultimately provide the groundwork for producing these molecules in academic, industrial, and clandestine settings.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
12
6%
Medicine and Dentistry
11
5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
7
3%
Other
32
16%
Unknown
65
32%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 109. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 June 2026.
All research outputs
#477,834
of 33,028,947 outputs
Outputs from ACS Chemical Neuroscience
#50
of 3,330 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,788
of 484,959 outputs
Outputs of similar age from ACS Chemical Neuroscience
#1
of 67 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,028,947 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,330 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 484,959 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 67 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
