Salicylmethylecgonine also shows increased behavioral stimulation compared to cocaine similar to the phenyltropanes.

[3] However, in overall binding affinity (not uptake inhibition) it displaces ligands better across the board than cocaine in all monoamine categories.

Study of molecular modeling inferred that, in addition to intramolecular hydrogen bonding between the adjacent 3β-carbonyl and the 2′-OH ortho group of 185d (i.e. salicylmethylecgonine), that intermolecular hydrogen bonding between its hydroxy ortho substituent and the dopamine transporter was also possible; and was rationalized to be due to its nearness of where the nitrogen and oxygen atoms reside in the para-hydroxy of dopamine itself and its own intrinsic relation to DAT whereby that mutual hydroxyl functionality is mediated in both salicylmethylecgonine and dopamine in a similar manner.

Which may play a role in this analogs increased behavioral stimulation over its parent compound cocaine.

The meta-hydroxy group of dopamine, by contrast, has a distance of 6.38 Å from its nitrogen and is believed to engage with the 356 residue on DAT.