Love rats reveal agony of ecstasy
April 7, 2007
The secret ingredient injecting love into the air at ecstasy-fuelled dance parties may have been cracked.
However, researchers say their success in tricking rats into becoming amorous with total strangers has also raised fears that repeated use of ecstasy may eventually reverse instant lovers into anti-social loners.
Iain McGregor, professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Sydney, said yesterday it had long been known that ecstasy boosted serotonin, a hormone involved in controlling appetite, moods and anxiety.
But many other drugs, including Prozac, also activated serotonin levels without making people want to hug each other. Seeking the mechanism that makes it the "love drug" his team fed rats ecstasy.
"Two rats meeting for the first time would normally sniff each other and then move to opposite ends of the cage," said the professor. But given ecstasy, they quickly formed "an artificial, chemical bond".
"I'd hesitate to say they were cuddling, but they were lying down next to each other, looking very calm. That's rather unusual in rats."
Tests showed that the behaviour coincided with increased levels of oxytocin, a "bonding" hormone usually triggered in human childbirth, when a mother holds her baby for the first time, or when she breastfeeds.
Professor McGregor said that if ecstasy could be used as a tool to unlock natural bonding processes in the brain, it may be possible to make safer drugs to help people suffering anti-social psychological disorders.
However, his team, whose results have been published in the journal Neuroscience, also noted ecstasy's "sociable" effect on rats wore off quickly.
After a few months the rats turned from being unusually friendly to being more anti-social than before they took the drug. And the ugly mood swing seemed to be "a permanent change".
