Levoamphetamine

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The left-handed stereoisomer of amphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant used in some medications for attention disorders
2. A levorotatory form of amphetamine that rotates polarized light to the left and acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system
3. The laevo isomer of the amphetamine molecule, used pharmaceutically as a stimulant to treat conditions such as attention deficit disorder

Etymology: Levoamphetamine is a compound built from two parts: "levo-", from Latin "laevus" meaning "left", and "amphetamine", the name of the stimulant drug first synthesized in 1887. The prefix "levo-" is a chemistry term used to mark the left-handed form of a molecule, one of two mirror-image arrangements (enantiomers) that share the same atoms but are arranged as reflections of each other. The "left" meaning comes from polarized light. In the nineteenth century, chemists discovered that certain solutions rotate the plane of polarized light, and some rotate it to the left (levorotatory) while others rotate it to the right (dextrorotatory). The prefix "levo-" was adopted to name the left-rotating form, so it describes a physical property of the molecule rather than any handedness in the everyday sense. Levoamphetamine is the levorotatory half of racemic amphetamine. Pharmacologically it is the less potent of the two enantiomers, with the right-handed form ("dextroamphetamine") being the stronger stimulant. Because the two forms are identical in composition, the distinction between them lies entirely in their three-dimensional shape.

Synonyms: levamphetamine

Antonyms: dextroamphetamine