MDMA(damage) and Attention

[Vikingdancer]

Hi BL'ers,

I did some research on brain damage today and I wanted to share this and hear your thoughts on this. Oké so, if someone has even the slightest brain damage, it will affect almost always the attentional process negatively. So, we could say that your ability to concentrate is a very vulnerable brain function. Therefore is your ability to concentrate a very reliable sign of how your brain condition is. And a second pretty vulnerable brain function is your short-term memory(which is related to attention in my opinion.)

Now if MDMA would cause brain damage, the first brain function that would be affected by it is attention. Relying on this, almost all (AB!)users who has done brain damage to themselves are having (serious) problems concentrating. If things are worse the short-term memory is also negatively affected. On the other hand if someone is experiencing an LTC without attention problems, brain damage is out of the question imo.

But if someone has brain damage of MDMA and if you want to measure this. Can't we use (firstly) attention or (secondly) the short-term memory as a measuring rod for brain damage?

Have a good day!

 

[mb-909]

Nope, you can't just rely on the attention span. Your mindset, psychological conditions and stress all can cause attention relying disturbances. MDMA is really bad for all kind of memory related tasks though, even after just a couple hits, which is probably part of the rewiring process called neuroplasticy.

But usually brain damage isn't recognized at first, because the brain is painless and a rewiring can let it seem that you actual have some damage done (brain zaps anyone?). Alcohol leads to silent brain infarcts for example. Cocaine does the same with your heart vessels by the way.

 

[Vikingdancer]

Nope, you can't just rely on the attention span. Your mindset, psychological conditions and stress all can cause attention relying disturbances.

Yes as I said attention is a very vulnerable brainfunction. If someone his/her psycholigical condotions are neutral measuring brain damage by the ability to concentrate sounds legit for me. Also if a neuropsychologist tests a patient for brain damage, he will do simple attention - and memory tests. These kind of tests are cheap, but they have proven to be very effective to know if someone has some sort of brain damage. For example I had to count down to zero starting at 501 -7 (-7, -7, -7). Someone with severe attention problems, for example disorganized schizeophrenia, aren't able to do this at all. Also boxers are known for failing these tests consistently.

Maybe we can say that if someone doesn't have any attention nor memory problems. It is VERY unlikely he/has done (permanent) brain damage to his-/herself. Brain zaps also occur if someone is exhausted. Wouldn't say it means you damaged your brain.

 

[mb-909]

If someone his/her psycholigical condotions are neutral measuring brain damage by the ability to concentrate sounds legit for me.

But what is "neutral" and where do you know that he or she doesn't have any not recognized physical/psychological problems? Just saying it is hard to "define" and actually find brain damage done by drugs used with moderation (not talking about the emergency patients snorting 1 gramm over the course of the night), because said problems can occur on an altered brain chemistry as well. Feeling brain dead through my depression, I know that there are days there I am fine and concentrated and days of the opposite.

 

[Vikingdancer]

I think neutral is defineable. As I would definately define my gf, dad, mom as neutral. Also the mechanism which causes severe depression can also be defined as brain damage imo.

 

[mb-909]

I think neutral is defineable. As I would definately define my gf, dad, mom as neutral. Also the mechanism which causes severe depression can also be defined as brain damage imo.

Sorry but you simply can't consider your personal connections as neutral in matter of science. Most of the tested subjects in human based MDMA studies showed worsening of said memory, but it all was in the "neutral zone". This would mean that you would have to say your connections suffered brain damage if their attention is worse than the standard.

Do you consider a change in your biochemistry as brain damage or how do you know that the condition of severe depression underlies any sort of actual damage? Is the oxidative stress we suffer every day brain damage in your eyes? As far as I know brain damage is an irreversible condition. Neuroplasticity on the other hand is a process, which is active for most of our lifes.

You have to be careful what you call neurotoxicity or brain damage. We are all individuals and this is the reason why we react all differently to drugs. In the end everything you need to live is on a chemical basis and therefor you could say that what you need to survive is going to kill you slowly, day by day.

 

[Black]

Oké so, if someone has even the slightest brain damage, it will affect almost always the attentional process negatively.

not necessarily. it wholly depends on what kinds of neurons are killed in what brain area.

also i've read a study with recovering alcoholics, where they found that performance in memory/attention tasks correlates better with the level of education of the subjects than most other factors. also they only found that only impaired values for 68% of subjects, which is pretty low considered how neurotoxic alcohol is if you're an alcoholic.

But if someone has brain damage of MDMA and if you want to measure this. Can't we use (firstly) attention or (secondly) the short-term memory as a measuring rod for brain damage?

no. there are many factors that can lead to lowered scores. among them is for instance past heavy cannabis use and that's something that'll for quite a few people who take mdma.

there is no conclusive evidence that mdma causes brain damage, but there is overwhelming evidence that mdma causes transient (albeit sometimes long lasting — especially with abuse) dysregulation of the serotonin system and that's enough to explain the cognitive deficits we see with mdma abuse.

In the end everything you need to live is on a chemical basis and therefor you could say that what you need to survive is going to kill you slowly, day by day.

oxygen, nitric oxide and other highly reactive molecules. you cannot live with them and you cannot live without them

 

[BlueBull]

also i've read a study with recovering alcoholics, where they found that performance in memory/attention tasks correlates better with the level of education of the subjects than most other factors. also they only found that only impaired values for 68% of subjects, which is pretty low considered how neurotoxic alcohol is if you're an alcoholic.

Bit off-topic, sorry for that but could you provide a link to that study? I'd be interested to read a bit about that, since I have a good friend that has been an alcoholic for at least 10 years now and I don't know a whole lot about alcohol addiction

 

[Black]

sure. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25939560

though only the abstract is available publicly and the whole thing is more focused testing batteries in treatment rather than anything else, making it not very intersting for your porpuse i suppose...

 

[musicheals]

I think alcohol is worse for your brain.

 

[JWills20]

Using a behavioural marker as an indication of physical brain damage? With all due respect it's a dumb idea with all sorts of flawed assumptions.

Oké so, if someone has even the slightest brain damage, it will affect almost always the attentional process negatively

Not necessarily true. Ever met someone with autism? They can often have extremely good attentional capabilities and obsessively focus on things far better than 'healthy' people can.

Therefore is your ability to concentrate a very reliable sign of how your brain condition is

Not especially. It's a sign of how well the different brain functions that contribute to maintaining the ability to concentrate function. It's impossible to take a behavioural function and just assume a physical consequence, especially something so extreme such as brain damage. Black's on the mark with this:

there is no conclusive evidence that mdma causes brain damage, but there is overwhelming evidence that mdma causes transient (albeit sometimes long lasting — especially with abuse) dysregulation of the serotonin system and that's enough to explain the cognitive deficits we see with mdma abuse.

For some reason (probably propaganda) this forum seems to make the instant assumption that anything negative occurring from MDMA is brain damage despite really recognising how severe and unlikely actual brain damage is. Serotonin depletion is a far more likely reason for negative effects occurring from excessive MDMA use so assuming that attention deficits are brain damage is obviously flawed. Not to mention that our attentional systems are very sensitive to our current conditions such as: stress, mood, motivation, how important we perceive distractors to be etc etc. All of these can change from day-to-day changing how well we can attend to whatever it is we want to attend to.