Detection of LSD and metabolite in rat hair and human hair.

Abstract

To examine the feasibility of detecting lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and its metabolites in hair, LSD was administered to rats with pigmented hair at 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 2 mg/kg intraperitoneally once per day for 10 successive days. The rats were shaved just before the first administration, and newly grown hair was collected 4 weeks later. After being washed with 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfonate and water and being dried in a desiccator, each 20-mg hair sample was extracted with 2 mliter methanol-5N HCl (20:1) under ultrasonication for 1 h and stored at room temperature for 14 h. The extract was evaporated to dryness, extracted from 0.1M NaOH with dichloromethane, and derivatized with a mixture of trimethylsilylimidazole, bis-(trimethylsilyl)acetamide, and trimethylchlorosilane (3:3:2, v/v/v) for gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis using LSD-d10 or lysergic acid methylpropylamide (LAMPA) as the internal standard. Selected ions were monitored at m/z 395, 293, and 279 for TMS-LSD and at m/z 381, 279, and 254 for the trimethylsilyl derivative of N-demethyl-LSD (TMS-norLSD). LSD and norLSD were also detected by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorometric detection (excitation, 315 nm; emission, 420 nm). LSD was detected in the rat hair following the lowest dose (0.05 mg/kg), whereas norLSD was only detectable in the hair following the highest dose (2 mg/kg). The same GC-MS and HPLC assays were applied to the analysis of hair from 17 self-reported LSD users, and LSD was detected in two of the samples.