What is happening to my friend?

[Legerity]

4-5% of what is considered "normal"? while that may not be all of it, its a vast majority of it.

To imply that "all" of it was gone, you would have to make an argument that your body just stops producing it. Granted, the MDMA experience may use up a bunch of it, your body produces more... Its not a fast process, but its one that is happening all the time.

Sorry that meant to say a 4-5% reduction in serotonin. Although the study did not look at changes within the subjects, it compared a group of current ecstasy users vs. non-users.

I don't have a direct link to the article although it is mentioned here: http://www.maps.org/media/che022304.html

"A German study published last year using similar methods arrived at a very different result. As in Dr. Ricaurte's study, a radioactive marker was used to tag serotonin neurons in the brains of human subjects, using Positron Emission Tomography, or PET, scans. Recent users of Ecstasy and nonusers were scanned. Instead of finding massive reductions in the number of serotonin neurons, as Dr. Ricaurte reported, the loss was small -- about 4 to 5 percent. And when the German researchers looked at those who had not used the drug recently, they found no decrease at all. There were no holes."