Comment · Thu, September 27, 2012
MDMA may help in depression and PTSD, study suggest. Taboo surrounding substances prevents further research. [THE GUARDIAN]
What they were answering
_angel · 5 points
It depends how strong the dose is.
It takes 2 months from someone who has no serotonin in their system to go to full, kind of like filling up a water tower.
However, if someone takes a reasonable low dose it shouldn't even drain 1/3rd of the serotonin in their brain, so with reasonable use once every month is guaranteed to be safe. If you take more than 200mg every 2 months is much safer, but imho people shouldn't be taking high doses to begin with.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
That's such a massive oversimplification. There is absolutely no way to measure amounts of serotonin depletion in live subjects. Also, the rate at which it is replenished is dependent on many variables, like the amount of tryptophan in the diet, the level of tryptophan hydroxylase in the brain, and the activity of the CYP450 enzymes in the liver. Speaking to the level of danger, it depends on what type of neuronal changes you are considering damage. Are we focusing on neuronal death, or are we also considering receptor down-regulation and calcium channel damage as well? One could take a low dose of MDMA every other week without actual damage. However, there would be tolerance issues with receptor down-regulation and excitotoxicity at your gated calcium channels. Not damage per se, but may result in unwanted symptoms.