A real fMRI high: My ecstasy brain scan

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22280-a-real-fmri-high-my-ecstasy-brain-scan.html

by kisamoto • 14 years ago

167 43 14 years ago

nerdfiles• 14 years ago

Anecdotal, I must admit, but bereavement may be best resolved through MDMA, I find. That's in response to:

'The hypothesis was that MDMA would make the negative memories less painful. "We saw a boosted brain response to positive memories, and a weaker response to negative ones," says Carhart-Harris. "It fits the idea that MDMA can help people access negative memories without being overwhelmed by them and they might be able to change the way they feel about what happened."'

I have Asperger's, and so not only have I a pallid response to gore or human pain but I can understand it, visualize it, repeat it in thought, allot it a mental space. Horrific murder is latent with images, which I believe only become a growing gestalt in the mind's of those humans with Optimally Performing Long-Term Memories. It is perpetual moral education, as if with an admonishing tone, on the significance of human life. The morbid sense of humor which Aspies tend to develop becomes a fatal flaw in a world incapable of sustaining its own net happiness. (News which promulgates, indirectly, our Net Unhappiness Quotient. -- News becomes the Negative Nancy to unwitting optimists, aspie or otherwise. Granted, good news without explanation is pointless, and News' marketing format is non-amenable to Demonstration, Explanation, Maturation, and Observation (DEMO) of Knowledge.)

Of course a point is often made that industrial capitalism depends on a sufficiently self-imposed unhappiness, otherwise "no one would work," etc. The cost, however, is that those who can remember what is good in "bargain reality," and remember it well, flack and flail at those who are habitually forgetful, habitually like an agent whose sense of time must be perpetually engineered for them.

MDMA does not "wake one up" but established a greater memory retention for those events existentially nurturing to one's happiness.

msutherl• 14 years ago

"MDMA does not 'wake one up' but establishes a greater memory retention for those events existentially nurturing to one's happiness."

Indeed, though I would add that, in addition to increasing memory retention, it makes possible events that are themselves more existentially nurturing than one would normally experience.

The first experience on MDMA is often the most seratonin one has ever 'felt', which is to say it is often the 'happiest' one has ever felt (though it is a very specific kind of happiness).

The memory of that experience can set, if you will, a new bar for how 'good' life can be.

dreamdu5t• 14 years ago

Can't upvote this enough.

adrianhoward• 14 years ago

There's some background on one of the theories why MDMA may make make negative memories less painful in this Wired piece (if you can get past the link bait title :-)

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/all/...

Simplification: the act of recollection involves the memory being erased and then rewritten. If you're "happy" when you rewrite it then some of the negative emotions get knocked off for the next time you recall it.

nthitz• 14 years ago

When I saw the photo caption: "Welcome back, Graham. My, what big eyes you have" I thought this was about PG! Alas..

ihavebeenseen• 14 years ago

Always the red pill, so you know how deep the rabbit hole goes.

macey• 14 years ago

This has been going on at the veteran's hospital in SF for quite some time now. Great potential for PTSD treatment progress.

crntaylor• 14 years ago

I'm really glad that someone is doing this research. I first heard about the potential benefits of MDMA in therapy at a talk by David Nutt some years ago, but he was skeptical that we would be able to investigate it further because of tough restrictions around research into illegal drugs.

In case anyone is not already aware, David Nutt was the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), a scientific advisory body to the UK government. In 2009 he published an editorial comparing the harm from taking ecstasy (MDMA) to the harm from horse riding (in short, you can make a powerful case that horse riding is much more dangerous than taking ecstasy). In October 2009 he was dismissed from his position, because "he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy."

In my view it was a terrible decision by the UK government, and showcased their reluctance to make evidence-based decisions on politically charged subjects (like drugs, prison sentences, immigration etc). Since then, David Nutt has formed the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD), whose website [1] is well worth visiting if you want the most up to date and scientifically reliable information on drugs.

[1] http://www.drugscience.org.uk/

glaugh• 14 years ago

Nutt also wrote a pretty solid book about the data on the harms of various drugs (legal and illegal), and how best to reduce that harm as a society.

http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Without-Hot-David-Nutt/dp/190686...

edit: Economist review of said book: http://www.economist.com/node/21560223

easy_rider• 14 years ago

I'm suprised that he had to return a week later for another session. MDMA tolerance should be counted as a huge factor. I'm not sure if this is accidental or not. Although 83mg is not a big dose, and shouldn't be neurotoxic, without any supplements like 5-htp or other precursors to serotonin, it's pretty tough for your serotonin levels to return to baseline in a week time.

nicholassmith• 14 years ago

I don't know all of the protocol involved in the testing process but as Nutt is involved I think they're possibly trying to simulate the real world effects of repeat usage, the average user wouldn't be aware of 5-htp.

niho• 14 years ago

"The hypothesis was that MDMA would make the negative memories less painful."

Recreational use of MDMA has given me panic attacks, increased anxiety, emotional dependence and depression. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence online that tells the same story, which is something you rarely hear anyone talk about. It seems like different people respond differently to MDMA. Perhaps it's dependent on your personality or brain chemistry. For people like me the effect on the serotonin system in the brain can be very dangerous and sometimes cause permanent damage.

I used to be very liberal towards drug use in general until I experienced the down sides first hand.

balbaugh• 14 years ago

You say yourself that the evidence is anecdotal. There is evidence that points in many other directions, some of which are very promising and in need of further research.

Did you have a test kit to determine whether your experience was actually with pure MDMA?

Wilduck• 14 years ago

> Did you have a test kit to determine whether your experience was actually with pure MDMA

This is pretty important when talking about recreational use of MDMA. It's often pretty hard to find reasonably pure MDMA in many parts of the US. For more information on what pure MDMA looks like and common adulterants, erowid.org is a great resource.

pchivers2• 14 years ago

It's highly unlikely that you were using pure MDMA.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/05/ecstasy-related-deat...

"Ecstasy is so consistently adulterated that when pure MDMA turns up on the street, it’s likely be to sold on the street under the name MDMA or sometimes “Molly.” Corporal Luc Chicoine, the national co-ordinator for the RCMP’s pharmaceutical and synthetic drug operations, has worked on the street in drug operations for 18 years and said he can’t remember ever seeing pure MDMA."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/19/deaths-spur-research...

"For a sense of just what might be in a given pill, Hudson points to Ecstasydata.org — a Sacramento-based website listing active ingredients and proportions in mailed-in samples — which has tested thousands of hits of “ecstasy” since 2001.

A growing majority contain no ecstasy at all. Since 2010, 61% of 533 samples tested had no MDMA, with 111 containing the drug, and another 96 some combination of MDMA and other chemicals. Of 27 Canadian samples studied since 2010, 14 active chemicals were discovered, including caffeine, methamphetamine, benzylpiperazine (BZP) and procaine."

ebf• 14 years ago

I was under the impression that ecstasy is mdma + an upper, while molly is "pure" mdma.

matznerd4• 14 years ago

There are also similar therapeutic effects from taking mushrooms (psilocybin) or LSD. In these studies and others with MDMA, it appears that the effect lasts over a year.

( http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/23/magic-mushroom... )

For any of you HNers out there hesitant to utilizing any of these of substances in your life, remember that they help change your perspective and allow you to look at problems from new angles. I will leave you with a Steve Jobs quote on the topic:

“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

matznerd4• 14 years ago

I'll take the down votes for my post, and note that I'm not advocating you do them often, but there is something to be said about their positive effects if used sparingly and therapeutically.

throwaway09872• 14 years ago

Apologies for the throwaway, but I'd like to support your point. I'm generally quite reluctant with drugs and alcohol, however I recently experienced Truffles (the successor to mushrooms after the ban) in Amsterdam.

In combination with meditation I found the experience quite manageable, and unique in terms of the concepts I could explore and the insights into existing situations in my life.

I can see how recreational use can be quite damaging, but with the right intent and goals, deliberate application of psychedelics for troubleshooting and problem solving is something I'd happily explore again if it were more acceptable where I live.

matznerd4• 14 years ago

I think it is important to do it in the right mindset and with the right intentions. Most people associate MDMA with partying, and while that may be one use, I don't think it is necessarily the best. I don't even understand how people go party on mushrooms. I think the best is to be somewhere safe and quiet, outdoors hopefully on a sunny day with someone you trust or by yourself and just to sit and think and write if you can.

It is a matter of looking at these substances as entheogens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogens) and not a party tools and considering yourself a Psychonaut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychonaut) and not a party animal.

alwaysinshade3• 14 years ago

> remember that they help change your perspective and allow you to look at problems from new angles

For anyone who thinks this is airy-fairy crap, I can provide a very real example. I've been taking MDMA regularly for the last 6 months (~2 doses x 2 instances per month) and recently, after coming home while peaking I admitted to my partner of 9 years how I'd been abused as a child by particular relatives. I'd never told anyone up until that point, and it was what had been driving my alcoholism since my early 20's (now early 30's). As I recalled some of the details to her, what would have normally made me break down instead made me reflect on those events. I moved those memories from a traumatic area to a (for lack of a better phrase) "done and dusted" area. I made peace with those people and made peace with myself. Since then my desire to drink to excess has waned, and what was a constant anxiety is quickly fading.

For anyone who has a dark side, I recommend you try MDMA - especially in the company of someone you love or trust.

zone411• 14 years ago

I wouldn't want to tell you what to do with your own body, but I hope you realize that at this usage frequency you are abusing this drug. The current thinking is that such frequent use does not give your brain nearly enough time to recover and can lead to serious negative life-long consequences, such as depression. Another consequence worth looking up, if you didn't hear about it previously, is so-called "loss of magic."

matznerd4• 14 years ago

I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you, but I'm glad you are making progress in getting over it. Based on your dosage, I do not think you have a lot to worry about, just don't become dependent on it. Here is a pubmed study regarding higher frequency than you report (although I do not know your dose)

"MATERIALS AND METHOD:

We prospectively studied, as part of the NeXT (Netherlands XTC toxicity) study, sustained effects of a low dose of ecstasy on brain function in 25 subjects before and after their first episode of ecstasy use (mean 2.0 +/- 1.4 ecstasy pills, on average 11.1 +/- 12.9 weeks since last ecstasy use), compared to 24 persistent ecstasy-naive controls, also measured twice and matched with the novice users on age, gender, IQ, and cannabis use. Cognitive brain function was measured in the domains of working memory, selective attention, and associative memory using fMRI.

RESULTS: No significant effects were found of a low dose of ecstasy on working memory, selective attention, or associative memory neither at the behavioral level nor at the neurophysiological level.

CONCLUSIONS: This study yielded no firm evidence for sustained effects of a low dose of ecstasy on human cognitive brain function. The present findings are relevant for the development of prevention and harm reduction strategies. Furthermore, the study is relevant to the discussion concerning potential therapeutic use of ecstasy. "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17476480

stinos• 14 years ago

A word of warning on those amounts: while the effects you are seeing now are mostly positive, there are possibly longer term negative, maybe irreversible, effects. For instance, it took my brain months to get rid of random psychedelic flashes occurring, ie seeing/hearing things that are not there. Funny at first, gets really annoying after a while. Also a couple of weeks after quitting regular usage I felt rather down and depressed, obviously due to the mess MDMA creates in the serotonin/dopamin system. For other effects: there are quite a lot of studies on them, and none of them are particularly good news. I'm not denying MDMA can give you nice insights and learns you how to cope with certain problems, I experienced that myself multiple times, but definitely stay away from sustained usage of more than a couple of months.

chm2• 14 years ago

I've had ecstasy once, 8 years ago. It was blissful, really.

I've also had psilocybin on 5 occasions. The first and second were particularly scary, because I held so tightly to my "normal" self. I then learned to completely abandon myself to the drug, and I've come out of the last three experiences with an unusually great outlook on life.

And as the Greek already knew, pleasure resides in moderation. To anyone wanting to try psychedelic drugs, my opinion is the same as matznerd's.

sneak2• 14 years ago

> you can’t remember it when it wears off

Bullshit.

rogerclark• 14 years ago

this article doesn't say anything

anjc• 14 years ago

Am i missing some of the article, or does it just not give any hint at the outcome of the MRI?

I remember, years ago, seeing brain scans showing something like serotonin receptors before MDMA usage, and months after, and if i remember right, things hadn't gotten back to normal long after. Anyone know anything about the long term effects?

aroberge• 14 years ago

The study is in progress: it would be highly inappropriate for the researchers to release any kind of result at this point.

alwaysinshade3• 14 years ago

IIRC those were scans of primate brains. A more recent and comprehensive study conducted by Dr. John H. Halpern, Director of the Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry in the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse at McLean Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School found no residual cognitive effects in humans.

"New Study Finds No Cognitive Impairment Among Ecstasy Users

[...] a team of researchers has conducted one of the largest studies ever undertaken to re-examine the cognitive effects of ecstasy, funded by a $1.8 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and published in the journal Addiction."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110215081736.ht...

Conclusion from the actual study (journal behind paywall):

"In a study designed to minimize limitations found in many prior investigations, we failed to demonstrate marked residual cognitive effects in ecstasy users. This finding contrasts with many previous findings—including our own—and emphasizes the need for continued caution in interpreting field studies of cognitive function in illicit ecstasy users."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010....

gnosis• 14 years ago

Here's what Alexander Shulgin[1] had to say[2] in response to a similar question on the subject:

  Dear Dr. Shulgin:

  Lately I've been hearing a lot of talk about how every
  time you take ecstasy it does permanent damage to the
  brain. I've also heard that ecstasy puts holes in the
  brain. Are these statements true?

    -- Road Dog

  Dear Road Dog:

  No, they are not. The "permanent brain damage" is based
  totally on studies done with experimental animals, with
  the findings extrapolated to encompass the human subject.
  In a simple statement, there have been no studies in man
  that have indicated brain damage.

  The "holes in the brain" is an even more outrageous
  deception. These popular holes are areas in brain scans
  that appear less active in attracting radiolabelled agents
  that are agonists for certain receptor site areas. The
  pictures that are shown for comparison are not of the same
  person with or without MDMA in them, but of different
  people, one of whom has used a lot of ecstasy and the
  other one without any such history. The quintessence of
  this line of mythology is an article that appeared
  recently in the Willamette Week. It not only assured the
  reader that there were holes generated by serotonin loss,
  but that they became flooded with dopamine (the default
  neurotransmitter) and, being attacked by hydrogen
  peroxide, produced rust.

  Sorry, drug warriors. No damage, no holes, no rust.

    -- Dr. Shulgin

I can also strongly recommend reading the information on MDMA (and other psychoactive substances) on erowid.org[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin

[2] http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/shulgin/adsarchive/brainhole...

[3] https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma.shtml

jmtame• 14 years ago

If you still (incorrectly) believe that MDMA causes "holes in your brain" (referring to a retracted study where the instrumentation was not calibrated properly over-exaggerating how much MDMA affects serotonin levels) or Parkinson's disease (referring to a retracted study about how labels were incorrectly placed on bottles and monkeys were administered very high doses of methamphetamine and not the MDMA) I strongly recommend watching Ecstasy Rising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjvNCijeYlI

The short version is that there is lots of DEA-funded propaganda and verifiably flawed scientific studies out there. Buddhist monks and therapists have used MDMA before in their practice where they claim that one dose of MDMA is equivalent to a full year of couples therapy. I'm really glad more research is going on in the open about MDMA; for too long it's just been the DEA using fear mongering.

chm2• 14 years ago

It's important that such research is done, but there's a caveat. Usually, people will take MDMA for pleasure, in a peaceful setting - not in an MRI machine.

I wonder to what extent this can affect the readings of the MRI. Any brain scientist in the crowd?

fl3tch• 14 years ago

"This is my eye, captured by a mini TV camera mounted inside the machine. This camera isn't a normal fixture but was installed by the TV production company filming the experiment for a documentary. The pupil is widely dilated, one of the outward signs I have been given MDMA. The inward signs are pretty obvious too."

This is why it's impossible to do a truly double blind study of this kind. So you give them MDMA or psilocybin and ask if it helped their PTSD therapy or if they had a religious experience, and they are more likely to say yes.

quadrant6• 14 years ago

Goes without saying that pure MDMA and "Ecstasy" as many people know it (from a dealer, friend) are two very different things.

blendergasket• 14 years ago

First I want to say that it's infuriating that the healing experiences described in this thread are illegal. I don't want to speculate on why this is the case, but I find it fascinating that anti-depressants are legal but drugs like MDMA and Mushrooms are illegal even though they've been shown to be profoundly and positively influence the lives of the people who use them, helping them work through and get past the issues that are the root cause of their persistent negative emotions.

Psychedelics have become a small but important part of my spiritual practice, yet I do not belong to Santo Daime or the UDV so my practice is illegal. I find it strange and quite sad that a person following his or her own path is not granted the same legal rights as someone who chooses a path with the defined structure of a church. I guess we haven't gotten past persecuting our alchemists and witches yet.

Mushrooms, MDMA, DMT, are category 1 drugs in the US, which means that there is no known medical use for them according to the government. This is a very sad joke.

A real fMRI high: My ecstasy brain scan

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