zorn
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2001
- Messages
- 5,636
There are 4 changes in your brain after taking MDMA
The last one is what all the MDMA studies measure. Right now it's pretty clear that short-term memory is significantly damages by really heavy use. Researchers, myself, and many other BLers all think it also can cause anxiety and possibly depression. But no studies have been done on this yet (it's a lot harder to quantify than memory, and much more affected by possible preexisting differences.)
In heavy users, the neurotoxicity makes the first three effects worse -- you have less serotonin cells than normal, so every little bit hurts. Hence long-term users often crash much harder and feel more nasty effects than people just started out, even they roll the same amount.
Hopefully this'll clear things up a little.
- You use up a large amount of the serotonin in your brain, so you have less to use afterwards. Serotonin's made pretty slowly, so it takes a day or two to do this. This is partially the cause of the midweek or day-after depression some people get after taking E.
- You make serotonin much slower. This is because MDMA destroyes the enzyme TPH (tryptophan hydroxylase) which makes serotonin (from 5-HTP). It can take your body up to two weeks to replace all your TPH.
- You have fewer serotonin receptors, so you are tolerant to MDMA, and might experience afteraffects. At first MDMA makes your serotonin levels shoot up, and so the cells have a self-correction mechanims that destroys some of the serotonin receptors, which sorta cancels out the effect of the MDMA. This determines when you comedown from E. Unfortunately, it then takes days to monthsfor your body to make enough new receptors to get back to normal.
- MDMA, especially doing it frequently or a lot at once, actually destroys the endings of nerve cells in your brain. This is what we mean when we talk about neurotoxicity or brain damage from E. It can take up to a couple days for the cells to actually die off (the MDMA just mortally wounds them). The cells remained damaged for at least years, likely permanently. Evidence suggest that the cells do grow back after a few years, but they grow back to the wrong places, so this doesn't really help.
The last one is what all the MDMA studies measure. Right now it's pretty clear that short-term memory is significantly damages by really heavy use. Researchers, myself, and many other BLers all think it also can cause anxiety and possibly depression. But no studies have been done on this yet (it's a lot harder to quantify than memory, and much more affected by possible preexisting differences.)
In heavy users, the neurotoxicity makes the first three effects worse -- you have less serotonin cells than normal, so every little bit hurts. Hence long-term users often crash much harder and feel more nasty effects than people just started out, even they roll the same amount.
Hopefully this'll clear things up a little.
