AylaV
Bluelighter
I'll throw this onto the MDMA FAQ at some point most likely, but I found this awesome article written a little over a year ago that examines MDMA in a much less hostile environment and uses MRIs to try to study something other than "holes" in your brain
Check it out (I feel this is more MDMA related than "new" related which is why it's not in that forum) --
http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/...the-neurobiology-of-social-behavior/#more-746
Among highlights..
I especially like this second quote. Next time someone said MRIs show that MDMA puts holes in your brain, you can say "although MDxx most certainly has negative effects on the brain, MRIs have shown that MDMA makes happiness hyper-rewarding and negates the hyper-importance of fear and anger produced by the amygdala."
The main plus of that is making your friends feel stupid for telling you MDMA puts holes in your brain.
I dunno.. just thought that was super cool and wanted to share it with you all.

http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/...the-neurobiology-of-social-behavior/#more-746
Among highlights..
Feelings of empathy and sociability are also difficult concepts to measure in animals, where most drug research is still performed for legal and ethical reasons. How do you determine whether MDMA makes a rat “friendlier” with other rats? One method, employed in a 2005 study, measured the likelihood of rats to lie next to each other, sort of a cuddle test. Sure enough, a dose of MDMA increased the likelihood that rats who had not previously met would lie next to each other.
Researchers then guided the subjects to an MRI machine, where images were taken of their brains as they viewed a picture set of people making different facial expressions. Those under the influence of MDMA showed both a heightened response to happy faces and a dampened response to angry faces. A brain region called the ventral striatum, which is associated with reward processing, showed stronger activation to happy versus neutral faces in subjects given MDMA, the authors found. Conversely, when angry faces were showing, the response of the amygdala, a region involved in the processing of negative emotions was reduced, suggesting a lower sensitivity to social threat.
I especially like this second quote. Next time someone said MRIs show that MDMA puts holes in your brain, you can say "although MDxx most certainly has negative effects on the brain, MRIs have shown that MDMA makes happiness hyper-rewarding and negates the hyper-importance of fear and anger produced by the amygdala."
The main plus of that is making your friends feel stupid for telling you MDMA puts holes in your brain.
