The mechanism by which the amphetamines damage selectively nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons in experimental animals remains uncertain. The observation that neuronal cell death during embryogenesis involves an activation of gene expression and new protein synthesis, coupled with recent reports indicating that the amphetamines are capable of inducing neuropeptide biosynthesis, offers a possible clue as to their neurotoxic mechanism of action. Based on these considerations, we evaluated the effects of two different inhibitors of protein synthesis, cycloheximide and anisomycin, on the long-term, amine-depleting effects of methamphetamine (METH) in mice and rats. Both inhibitors were found to block the amine-depleting effects of METH in these species. In other experiments, cycloheximide did not affect the functional integrity of dopaminergic or glutamatergic neurons, transmitter systems previously implicated in the neurotoxic mechanism of action of METH. These findings raise the possibility that the neuronal-damaging effects of METH are mediated via a synthesis of 'neurotoxic' proteins.