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Research Study: Long Term Ecstasy Users Don’t Have Brain Damage

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DJ Sphinx Project

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Government backed scientists in Germany published new research this week, which failed to find any significant or lasting harm to the brains of heavy ecstasy users.

While the study of past and present heavy users (who averaged 827 and 793 pills respectively) uncovered tiny differences in SERT densities (relating to potential seratonin damage) between current and non-users, the differences disappeared altogether when former heavy users were compared to non users.

“These results were particularly interesting in that they dramatically contradict an American study done by George Ricuarte (funded by the US government) which used similar brain scan techniques and ecstasy users with a similar level of lifetime use, but which claimed to have found massive (as much as 90%) loss of SERT,” said an editorial in the hugely prestigious Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

“This huge discrepancy is both unexplained and troubling, as Ricuarte's claims were used both to justify outlawing ecstasy in the US and as justification for sentencing increases,” the journal added.

http://jnm.snmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/44/3/375
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ooh, nice. too bad you gotta pay to get access to the full article, but i can understand the reasons. i'm not sure that posting the full article would be such a hot idea (they might raise a bit of hell about it if they find out, you never know), but emailing it should be fine. if anybody has the full, send it my way as well!

stickied! :)
 
Me too please! :)
(PM and I'll give my e-mail address)

Thanks!

Edit: And if the original document can only be found in German, I'd consider translating the basics, depending on the length!
 
Still beware...the SUV (standard uptake value) for serotonin is still low in former users, and may have been statistically significant had there not been so much variation in the former ecstasy user data. This study, like all others (positive or negative) should be looked at carefully and backed by more research before you are to assume that there is no long term damage.
 
yes, just because this study has results favorable to our own interests, let's not go running about screaming that it's "unbiased." It's likely that it's just as biased as Ricaurte's work - just in the other direction. So take this one with a grain of salt as well. It is good news though. :D
 
I've heard about this study before, and a lot of people deciding "ecsatsy is completely safe" because of it.

Problems with study:

1) It assumes all heavy ecstasy users have no long term damage after there serotonin has fully replenished. Anyone who has been reading the dark side, and health Q&A forums on this site or knows a lot of ex-pillheads will know that people do suffer effects long after...such as myself.

2) It does not pick up on other possible brain damage, such as a damaged short term memory, or speach problems.

3) It does not show how a heavy ecstasy user's serotonin system would react. My personal theory is that heavy ecstasy use will see a person more prone to psychological problems in the future... an example of such, is heavy users report their come-downs get even worse over time.

4) As it measures people with an average pill intake of 827 and 793 pills, chances are those people have taken that many because they are the lucky ones who don't get a problem from it. People who react badly to the drug would stop at about 100 for instance.

Please correct me if anyone feels those evaluations are unjust.
 
That sounds like the biggest load of crap iv ever heard!!!! How can it not fuck up your brain !! It makes ya trip and feel absolutely different! Anythin that does that cant be good for and i dont need any research to tell me that!:o
 
Re: Research Study: Long Term Ecstasy Users Don?t Have Brain Damage

How...utterly bizarre. Most of the quoted text in the first post is actually a little news bit I wrote for my web site.

At any rate, the study was funded by the German government via their version of the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

I would agree that this doesn't really prove no harm whatsoever had occurred, but it casts a very long shadow on earlier claims of doom and destruction befalling all users. When people walk away from hundreds of uses with serotonin systems that (after a period of abstinance) cannot be distinguished from those of non-drug users, it's a significant bit of news IMO. At the least, the Ricaurte claim of massive permanent damage from a single "common recreational dose" has gotten it's teeth kicked in.

The origional journal article can be downloaded here courtesy of MAPS.

I think Raas' suggestion that these heavy users could have been self-selected for resistance to side effects anyway is quite interesting and not unreasonable; I can't imagine taking 200 pills a year myself.

Simon wonders about psychological effects; the authors of the referenced article actually did a followup piece studying mental health (using the same subjects) but I don't have it on hand.... I believe they found similar but slightly higher rates of psychiatric problems among the MDMA users, but don't hold me to that.....
 
just my 2 cents:

I don't think any scientific study should begin with a bias, but to get funding you need a theory and with a theory comes bias.

I think a lot of people are hoping that a lab will come out and say ecstasy is good or ecstasy is bad. But I like this study in the fact that it pretty much just offers a piece of the puzzle. instead of saying, hey look we proved ecstasy isn't bad, they kind of just say here is some hard data which might expand the big picture.

There are so many factors to consider amongst the health issues associated with mdma like neurotoxicty, depression, renal function, speech, memory, etc. I think its good that studies are being done that don't try to generalize the effects of the drug using just one expiriment with x number of groups through x number of weeks.

Studies should be more progressive, and less "lets try to hit the nail on the head"
 
regular ecstacy user

what i found interesting is the definition of a regular ecstacy user
Quote from the full text
"Actual Ecstasy Users (Group A). Thirty actual ecstasy users (15 females, 15 males; mean age, 24.5 +/- 4.2 y) were investigated. Inclusion criterion was regular ecstasy use (at least once per week) of at least 2 tablets within 48 It each time.

To me, this is heavy use not regular. i think for more accurate studies maybe another catagory should be used.
Maybe:
Responsible user- criterion should be use of ecstacy no more than twice a month and no more than two tablets at a time.

For a lot of users this catagory might give more accurate information about the possible effects of ecstacy.
 
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noxious_infestation in your opinion maybe...but I feel that a lot of these problems are created psychologically due to it's illegality, newness & to some degree it's impurities.

As for the noted negative effects, I didn't mean to convey that there wasn't the possibility of any negative changes. Just that IMO these changes may not all(if at all) be negative after a period of abstinence. Taking daily,etc surely isn't good for you but maybe when you stop for a reasonable time period your overall functionality may or appear to return to normal...psychological effects are definitely also added due to the above mentioned that's all I was trying to contribute;)
 
Interesting article. Still, more studies need to be done to verify these findings as well as to compare them with previous ones. It is good though, in that it has paved the way to a change in mindset where this form of research is concerned. Bodes well for users! =D
 
I knows a lot of people who suffer cognitive and emotionals probs induced by MDMA since they breaked, 2 years ago. I am one of them (8 months). They havent recovered all theirs capacities. Here are one functional consecuence inducibg by MDMA that doesnt improvement along the time althoug serotonin transporter density improvement. Somthing is happening in brain chemistry and It seems to be irreversible. how we can know if sinapsis works? Its needed hard training to re-start to work?, Its is possible?
is it neurotoxicity? this isnt the cuestion.

IS IT FUNCTIONALITY REVERSIBLE?

I´M SPANISH BOY, I HEVE KICKED YOUR LANGUAJE. iM SORRY
Cortical serotonin transporter density and verbal memory in individuals who stopped using 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine :|
 
Having read the publication, I must say that I find the title of this thread quite optimistic, saying there is no brain damage... In the conclusion of the publication the researchers even state: "...our results might indicate reversibility of the availability of SERT as measured by PET, which, however, does not imply full reversibility of neurotoxic effects"

SERT density might grow back to normal levels after a long period of abstinence from MDMA, but does this mean that the damaged axon terminals have regrown to where they are supposed to be? (the PET's voxel size was 3.4 by 3.4 by 3.4 mm, I don't know much about neurology, but isn't it possible that SERT levels do regrow, but that the axons are messed up, which does not get measured by PET?). And couldn't it be quite damaging to the brain as a whole (psychological effects), that when during use (for some people for many years without pause) users have significant lower SERT density?

Then, there is something else, on a more empiric level: the many many (ex) users that claim to have prolonged, perhaps irreversible, complaints due to their MDMA use. As long as there is only as little known about the effects of MDMA as there is right now, stating MDMA is not neurotoxic is in my opinion a very unjust statement.



by the way, I'm sorry if my English is not so good...
 
i found an article about 6 months ago or so stating that the info provided by the US was incorrect and that they essentially used the wrong kind of brain scanner thingy(i apologize its late and i haven't read the article in a long time) and because they ran the wrong kind of tests it appeared that there were holes in the brain...despite the fact that the DEA and what have you knew of the error they continued to use the results as a scare tactic to prevent teens and other people from trying the drug or to get them to stop using the drug...if i find the website i'll post it...
 
^^^ The article should still be archived at Dancesafe. But the gist of the story was that the scanner was programmed to a color scheme that would show the most dramatic effect, and did not indicate anything out of the ordinary other than the need for more sophisticated testing. The "holes in the brain" scan could easily have belonged to a sober user with a normally functioning brain. However, the famous picture has been featured on hundreds of antidrug documents ever since, as a more technological-looking example of the old egg-in-the-frying-pan commercial: "This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs."

Harlequin
 
Myth

Ecstasy burns holes in your brain.
Status: Untrue
Source: Oprah; MTV's Special on Ecstasy, 11/28/2000.
Rebuttal: Rick Doblin, PhD – see http://www.maps.org/media/mtvclarify.html
MTV presented a brain scan of a woman named Lynn Smith, who had consumed a large amount of MDMA. This brain scan was described as showing ‘holes in her brain’, similar to the brain of an elderly woman who had had many strokes. However, the scan actually measures the amount of blood flow in the brain. The ‘holes’ merely demonstrate a lower blood flow in some regions of her brain. These lower figures are relative, not absolute – they are lower relative to her own brain, not to anyone else’s. Not to a “normal” standard. In other words, you could scan anyone’s brain and get the same results, if you wanted to.

Another study, which used more sophisticated techniques to compare MDMA users and non-users, found no significant difference in brain blood flow between the two groups.
Click to expand...

From the MDMA: Essential Guide v.1.00 here on BL, this part. Follow the link in the quote for more info.
 
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