Researchers
fail to find signs of any lasting harm to heavy "Ecstasy"
(MDMA) user's
brains. (3/12/03)
In another blow to early theories that
human users of the drug "ecstasy"
are damaging their brains, researchers
working for the German government's
version of the FDA have published the
results of one of the largest, most
sophisticated studies ever done on the
brains of heavy ecstasy users in
this month's Journal of Nuclear
Medicine.
The study compared the brains of three groups: 30 people who
were currently
using "ecstasy" and had an average lifetime usage of 827
tablets of
ecstasy; 29 people who no longer used ecstasy but had in the past
used an
average of 793 tablets; and 29 people who had never used
ecstasy.
Using PET brain scans, the scientists measured the density of
SERT, a
protein that is part of serotonin neurons. If the ecstasy users had
destroyed parts of their serotonin system (as some researchers have
suggested), then the SERT proteins on the serotonin neurons would be
missing as well.
The results: Current heavy users of ecstasy did in
fact have fewer SERT
proteins than non-users. However, the difference was
very small, on the
order of 3-5%, and when the former heavy ecstasy users
were examined, even
that small difference vanished: The former user's brains
were
indistinguishable from the brains of people who had never used illegal
drugs. The small differences seen between the brains of current heavy
ecstasy users and non-drug users were apparently fully reversible upon
quitting use, a trend seen repeatedly in previous research. (Visit
Neurotoxicity for more information on previous studies.)
These
results were particularly interesting in that they dramatically
contradict
an American study done by George Ricaurte (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. 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 (in some
cases making a dose
of ecstasy ten times more severely punished than a dose
of
heroin.)
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