6-Hydroxy-DET, or 6-HO-DET, also known as 6-hydroxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine, is a possible psychedelic drug of the tryptamine family related to dimethyltryptamine (DMT). It is the 6-hydroxy derivative of diethyltryptamine (DET). The drug is a notable metabolite of DET.
According to Alexander Shulgin in his book TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved), 6-HO-DET has been reported to be active at a dose of 10mg by intramuscular injection. Lower doses of 1 to 2mg were inactive, whereas 5mg produced threshold effects. The drug at a dose of 10mg was said to produce psychedelic effects very similar to those with 60mg diethyltryptamine (DET), with these effects starting after 1hour and lasting 2 to 3hours. Based on this report, the drug would be about 5 to 6times more potent than DET in humans. However, this report of 6-HO-DET's properties and effects is a second-hand early account in a single subject provided by Stephen Szara and colleagues and has not been replicated. Moreover, it is seemingly inconsistent with the inactivity of the closely related compounds 6-HO-DMT, 6-MeO-DMT, and 6-fluoro-DET. Relatedly, Shulgin wrote in TiHKAL that it is pretty generally accepted that 6-HO-DET is inactive.
The effects of 6-HO-DET in animals have been studied. It was found to be much more potent than diethyltryptamine (DET) in terms of producing behavioral effects in rodents.
Alexander Shulgin has noted that 6-HO-DET may have poor bloodâÂÂbrain barrier permeability due to its exposed hydroxyl group and consequent polarity analogously to bufotenin (5-HO-DMT).
The predicted log P of 6-HO-DET is 3.1. For comparison, the predicted log P of 6-HO-DMT is 2.4, of 4-HO-DET is 2.7, of 5-HO-DET is 1.9, and of bufotenin (5-HO-DMT) is 1.2.
Analogues of 6-HO-DET include diethyltryptamine (DET), 6-hydroxytryptamine (6-HT or 6-HO-T), 6-HO-DMT, 6-MeO-DMT, 6-methyl-DMT, 6-fluoro-DET, psilocin (4-HO-DMT), 4-HO-DET, bufotenin (5-HO-DMT), 7-HO-DMT, 5-HO-DET, 5-HO-DPT, and 5-HO-DiPT, among others.
6-HO-DET was first described in the scientific literature by Stephen Szara and colleagues by 1962. It was identified as a major active metabolite of diethyltryptamine (DET). In addition, they found that excretion of 6-HO-DET with DET administration correlated with DET's hallucinogenic effects and that 6-HO-DET was much more potent than DET in humans based on preliminary observations. Consequently, Szara and colleagues theorized that 6-hydroxylation of psychedelic tryptamines like dimethyltryptamine (DMT), DET, and ñ-methyltryptamine (AMT) was importantly involved in their hallucinogenic effects. However, this hypothesis was later found to be incorrect and was abandoned.