This project is directed to defining specific interactions of alcohol and other sedative-hypnotic drugs with the biogenic amines and to correlating attendant alterations of neuroamine metabolism with the pharmacologic effects of these drugs. Specific efforts are addressed to testing the hypothesis that prolonged exposure to large quantities of alcohol and related drugs modifies the metabolic disposition of biogenic amines, resulting in increased steady state levels of highly reactive neuroamine-derived aldehydes and enhanced production of aberrant alkaloid metabolites of the neuroamines. The long range goal is to integrate this information into a framework which hopefully will provide a basis for understanding the mechanisms underlying the neuropharmacological actions of ethanol and related drugs, especially those involved in the addiction liability of the drugs producing dependency of the alcohol-barbiturate type. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Meyerson, L.R., McMurtrey, K.D. and Davis, V.E.: Neuroamine-Derived Alkaloids: Substrate-Preferred Inhibitors of Rat Brain Monoamine Oxidase in Vitro. Biochem. Pharmacol. 25: 1013-1020 (1976). McMurtrey, K.D., Meyerson, L.R., Cashaw, J.L. and Davis, V.E.: High Pressure Cation Exchange Chromatography of Biogenic Amines. Anal. Biochem. 72: 566-572 (1976).