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
[deleted] · 3 points
Here's another good study, but this one experimental.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
That's good! I like the fact that they are testing MDMA against it's known metabolites. This will lead to better understanding of exactly which oxidative substances are mostly to blame. Pharmacological studies are the ones I am interested in. I don't really care about statistical correlations in samples of the population. Whoopdie do, you were not able to measure lower cognitive ability in 52 people. Better go take a gram of MDMA and dance for 6 hours...
Do you by chance have the study you linked in full? I'd love to read it, but not for $45.