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Ecstasy may cause social withdrawal
By Janelle Miles
November 08, 2005
ECSTASY is known as the love drug but research on rats suggests in the long term the drug may cause social withdrawal, an Australian scientist has found.
Psychopharmacologist Iain McGregor, of the University of Sydney, said a short-term study on rats confirmed the widely reported immediate effects in humans of a strong feeling of love and closeness towards others.
"The rats became very sociable on the drug," Associate Professor McGregor said.
Their sociability increased the warmer the environment - mimicking a hot and sweaty rave party or nightclub where ecstasy is often consumed.
But Dr McGregor said long-term studies of rats given ecstasy found they eventually became anti-social, depressed, anxious and stressed.
"They didn't interact with new rats that they met in the way that a normal rat that's never had ecstasy would," he said.
The anti-social effects occurred even after relatively brief exposure to ecstasy.
Dr McGregor presented the results to the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and Other Drugs' conference in Melbourne which ends tomorrow.
He said the research suggested ecstasy tapped into brain systems regulating social behaviour.
"One way of thinking of this is that when you take ecstasy, you get this incredible boost through the brain circuits that are involved in social behaviour," he said.
"But we think there's a long-term cost. The drug may cause a lasting change in the brain circuitry so over time, you're not as sociable as you would have been had you never taken ecstasy.
"Obviously, research on rats doesn't absolutely prove that the same thing is happening with humans, but it gives us some cause for concern."
Studies on humans have suggested a link between ecstasy and depression, anxiety disorders and social withdrawal.
Dr McGregor said giving the rats anti-depressants failed to improve their abnormal social behaviour.
The researchers plan to continue the research by studying ecstasy's effect on a hormone called oxytocin, known as being important for bonding between mother and child.
"Ecstasy causes a release of oxytocin," Dr McGregor said.
"It's one of the reasons people tend to fall in love on the drug because of that oxytocin effect.
"Ecstasy may be having a huge effect on oxytocin in the short term but in the longer term, there could be some depletion or some abnormal effect."
From News.com.au / AAP