WASHINGTON, June 14, 1999
Ecstasy, a so-called designer drug favored by club-goers, can cause long-lasting damage to the brain, researchers said Monday.
Experiments on monkeys showed that as little as four days of using Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, can cause damage lasting six to seven years later.
"People who take MDMA, even just a few times, are risking long-term, perhaps permanent, problems with learning and memory," Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study, said in a statement.
MDMA, used at "rave" parties and other large gatherings, has a stimulant effect. Users report a sense of euphoria and well-being, but it has been associated with some deaths -- some of them immediately after use.
It affects serotonin, an important brain signaling chemical associated with mood, among other things.
"The serotonin system, which is compromised by MDMA, is fundamental to the brain's integration of information and emotion," Leshner said.
George Ricaurte and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore gave either salt water or Ecstasy to some squirrel monkeys twice a day for four days.
Two weeks later, they looked at the brains of half of the monkeys, and found damage to neurons associated with serotonin.
Areas particularly affected, they reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, were the neocortex, the outer part of the brain which is associated with conscious thought, and the hippocampus, associated with long-term memory.
Six to seven years later, the scientists examined the rest of the monkeys' brains. Richaud said they had not recovered from the damage.
"Some recovery of serotonin neurons was apparent in the brains of the monkeys given MDMA previously but this recovery occurred only in certain regions and was not always complete," Richaud said.
"Other brain regions showed no evidence of recovery whatsoever."
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All Rights Reserved.
"Scientists have expressed strong criticism of a new report about MDMA to be published in the journal Science on September 27. The primate study, by Dr. George Ricaurte and colleagues, reports that MDMA - or Ecstasy - damages dopamine neurons in the brain, and suggests that such damage indicates that MDMA may cause Parkinson's disease in humans.
"Critics, pointing to questionable assumptions in Dr. Ricaurte's report, say it suggests no such thing. And they express concern about the hysteria often generated by exaggerated estimates of drug-related harms - which, they say, can hinder the efforts of parents and teachers to establish open, honest dialogue with young people about drug use.
"Dr. Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Ellis Professor of Neurology, University of South Florida, and an expert in Parkinson's and dopaminergic neurotoxicity, said, "The multiple dose regimen of injected MDMA administered by Dr. Ricaurte to primates does not simulate human exposure, does not cause cell death, and does not predict anything about human vulnerability to Parkinson's as a result of MDMA. In fact, Dr. Ricaurte's study shows that it is far easier to kill whole animals than to kill neurons." [...]
"Scientists pointed to several important flaws in the Science report:
"1) The doses administered are not representative of human doses [...]
2) Data from actual human studies shows no dopamine reductions from MDMA [...]
3) There is no proven link between Parkinson's and amphetamine or methamphetamine [...]
"Risk/Benefit Analysis for MDMA/PTSD Psychotherapy Research
"The FDA has approved a study into the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). [...] According to Rick Doblin, Ph.D., [...] "It has taken 17 years since MDMA was made illegal in 1985 before a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the therapeutic use of MDMA has been approved by the FDA. During that time, over 260 people worldwide have already been administered MDMA in clinical research studies focused on evaluating various aspects of the safety of MDMA, without demonstrating evidence of harm to those human subjects. [...]""