Comment · Thu, November 8, 2012
Research Suggests no Neurotoxicity in MDMA
Original post in this thread
PuffyCheek · 194 points
In partial response to what I've been reading in the bestof'd thread here at /drugs, I think it would be good to start a discussion about the neurotoxicity in MDMA.
I feel as if the harmful effects discussed in the thread were overblown. According to a research done by the Harvard Medical School last year in 2011, users who were asked to use MDMA under a controlled setting over a certain period of time showed no signs of cognitive impairment nor decreased mental ability.
So the question remains, why do we have so much evidence from past research studies that show otherwise? The researchers at Harvard Medical School responded by saying that past research studies lacked a proper control environment. What that means is that past research studies did not control their test group to make sure they didn't engage in unhealthy activities after ingesting MDMA (i.e. going to a rave and dancing for 8 hours straight).
No research since 2011 has proved Harvard Medical School's conclusion wrong, that MDMA is actually harmful to your brain. No other research studies that I could personally find had settings as controlled as the one conducted by HMS.
That being said, research was done…
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Please change the title of this thread, it's irresponsible. The study consisted of 52 MDMA users and 59 non-users. It simply is a statistical test to see if they had lower cognitive performance. This study did not have anything to do with pharmacology, or prove anything at all for that matter. All the subjects had to do was test positive in hair samples for MDMA, not test for other drugs, and be part of the underground rave culture. How they fucking tested that, I have no idea... They have no idea what people's body temperatures were when using. They have no idea dosages the people were using. They have no idea about anything to do with anything. They simply found that there was no statistical evidence for lower cognitive ability in users of MDMA alone. THAT DOES NOT MEAN MDMA DOES NOT CAUSE NEUROTOXICITY!!!!! It means that they cannot find statistical evidence of cognitive deficits in reasonable and moderate users of MDMA alone. Did they control for cognitive ability before MDMA use? NOPE.
Now it's all over the internet that MDMA does not cause neurotoxicity. Awesome....