Screening of psychotropic drugs in human hair based on high-performance thin-layer chromatography and microliquid extraction

The monitoring of the physiological and functional state of personnel from dangerous industries is very important for the ensuring of ecological security. Usually, this involves testing for the consumption of alcohol and drugs of abuse. During the last several years the use of legal psychotropic drugs has increased and the control over these drugs has became an actual problem. As is well known, the long-term history of drugs present in the body is accessible through hair analysis. This is why the aim of our research is to create a screening procedure based on coupling high-performance thin-layer chromatography with microliquid extraction as a psychotropic drug testing method for hair. Some widely distributed antidepressants, neuroleptics, and sedative drugs are chosen for research. The optimal experimental conditions for all of the consequent steps for the screening detection of the model samples are determined. The visual and densitometric detection limits allow for the employment of the proposed technique for a fast and cost-effective analysis of the drugs of abuse.