Modification of the pigment screening of the frog retina following administration of neuroactive drugs.

Pigment screening (PS) occurs in the retina of lower vertebrates and consists of the bidirectional migration (vitreally or sclerally) of melanin granules into processes of the pigment epithelium that extend between photoreceptors, in response to changes in the illumination conditions. We have studied the effect of some neuroactive drugs on the PS of frogs maintained under cyclic lighting conditions or dark-adapted. The drugs, administered intravenously were: lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, d-amphetamine, the LSD analogue lisuride and the LSD derivative 2-bromolysergic acid (BOL). All the drugs used--with the exception of mescaline--modify the bidirectional migration of the pigment induced by the two illumination conditions in a different way. This suggests that in general these substances interact in some way with those processes which normally produce the well-defined PS pattern. It has been possible to discriminate two opposite effects on the retinal PS induced by two chemically related substances (LSD and lisuride) only one of which (LSD) has potent hallucinogenic properties.