Comment · Fri, November 9, 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
Withnail20 · 1 points
Could you elaborate on what 'e-tarded' entails? Lack of memory? Drop in IQ?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
I spoke to it above, but I'll reiterate here. MDMA tolerance stems from a lowering of effectiveness at your gated calcium channels, mainly the ones controlled by your NMDA receptors. Your NMDA receptors are crucial to memory formation and recall. Lower the effectiveness of the channels, you lower the ability to store and access information. It also has a lot to do with receptor down-regulation and lowering of brain derived neurotrophic factor. If you or your friends are noticing symptoms, try some nootropics. Get some piracetam and see if that helps bring back some of the sharpness. Piracetam is an NMDA positive allosteric modulator. This will help to restore function of your calcium channels. Head over to /r/Nootropics for more info on them.