Due to the large bulbous nature of the weakly electron withdrawing iodo halogen atom, RTI-55 is the most strongly serotonergic of the simple para-substituted troparil based analogs.

[2] Another notable observation is the strong propensity of RTI-55 to cause locomotor activity enhancements,[2] although in an earlier study, RTI-51 was actually even stronger than RTI-55 in shifting baseline LMA.

RTI-55 is one of the most potent phenyltropane stimulants commercially available, which limits its use in humans, as it might have significant abuse potential if used outside a strictly controlled medical setting.

[4] However, it is definitely worthy of mentioning that increasing the size of the halogen atom attached to troparil serves to reduce the number of lever responses in a session when these analogs were compared in a study.

The main practical application for this drug in medicine is to assess the rate of dopamine neuron degradation in the brains of sufferers of Parkinson's disease,[8][9] and some other conditions such as progressive supranuclear palsy.