Purpose: The purpose of this short overview is to summarize and discuss the English-written and PubMed-listed review articles and original studies published between January 2015 and April 2019 on the use of metabolomics techniques for investigating the metabolism of new psychoactive substances (NPS). First, a brief introduction is given on the metabolism of NPS and metabolomics techniques in general. Afterward, the selected original studies are summarized and discussed. Finally, a section dedicated to the studies on NPS beyond metabolism using metabolomics techniques is provided. Thereafter, both sections are concluded and perspectives are given.
Methods: PubMed was searched for English-written literature published between January 1, 2015 and April 1, 2019.
Results: The present short overview found that the current use of metabolomics techniques in investigating the metabolism of NPS is rather limited, but these techniques can support and facilitate traditional metabolism studies.
Conclusions: Thus, there may be a certain potential for using metabolomics techniques in the field of NPS research, but a great challenge remains to thoroughly adopt the existing metabolomics methods.